Brothers
by ChaosGhidorah
Summary: AU. What would have happened if Goku and Raditz hadn't died that day when Raditz came to Earth? Would they have had the chance to actually become true brothers?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N:** This is the very first Fanfic that I've ever written. Dragon Ball was the first manga that I ever read so I guess that it would only be appropriate if my first Fanfic would be about it as well. I'll warn you right now that I have seen very few episodes of the anime but I've read the entire manga, so this fic will be based on the manga rather than the anime. So if some things doesn't fit with the anime its because A.) I haven't seen it or B.) I've deliberately changed them for the sake of the story. Most of the names of characters or attacks will also be those from the original Japanese version.

**Chapter 01**

**A Change Of Events**

The Saiyajin warrior Raditz was just about to deal out the finishing blow upon his younger brother, when his scouter reacted on a close energy signature. He quickly turned his head upwards and was surprised to see his brother's strange, green companion, charging up a huge amount of ki for some kind of finishing move. The scouter gave a second beep and Raditz read its readings.

"Power level 1330?!" he yelled, shocked to his core. "And all of his power is focused to his fingertips. Damnit all! Both of them can control their power how they want!"

The longhaired Saiyajin pulled back his left arm and started to gather ki for a blast of his own, so he could kill his enemy before he fired whatever he had prepared. But it was already to late.

"Makankosappo!" roared the tall, greenskinned warrior known as Piccolo as he thrusted his remaining arm forward. His index finger and middle finger crackled with the energy that he had gathered in order to perform his newest, and by far deadliest, technique. In a flash of light, the energy shot forth in a beam, formed as a screw, that drilled through the air. Faster than any speeding bullet, it aproached its target.

The beam shone stronger and stronger, until neither Piccolo nor Goku could keep their eyes open. A loud bang was heard, indicating that Piccolo's attack had hit something. The tall Namekian opened his eyes to behold his handiwork.

The entire area was engulfed in a cloud of dust. Piccolo's lips curled upwards in an evil smirk, believing himself to be victorious. But all thoughts of victory were replaced by those of horror when the dust finnaly lifted, revealing a badly hurt, but very much alive Raditz.

He had managed to dodge the beam in the last second, but it had still managed to hit him in the side. The beam had torn right through his battle armor and given him a huge gash in his right side. Raditz clutched his side in an attempt to stop the bleeding as he struggled to stand upright. He was loosing blood fast and shook his head to clear it from the spots that danced across his field of vision.

"That hurt like hell, you bastard," Raditz growled through clenched teeth. "Had that thing hit me properly, I would have been done for. Too bad for you that you had to concentrate for so long for that move to work, ´cause I'm not giving you a second chance to pull that thing off!" The Saiyajin raised his hand and started to gather ki in his palm so he could finally destroy this damn insect. Then he would kill his traitorous little brother along with the rest of the planet's vermin.

Piccolo knew what was coming. The Makankosappo had been their last chance and they blew it! There wasn't anything more they could do. He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come. One second. Two seconds. When the third second passed, he opened one of his eyes to see what was taking so long. He saw a paralyzed Raditz and behind him stood Goku, holding his older brother's tail in a firm grip, with a triumphant smile on his face.

"How incautious of you," Goku snickered, almost playfully, despite the seriousness of the moment. "I've got your tail."

Raditz had a shocked look on his face. Where did Kakarotto come from? He had been so focused on The green one that he hadn't even noticed when he had snuck up behind him and reached for his tail. He felt horrible pain surge up his spine when his tail was squeezed and he couldn't help falling to his knees. After another squeeze he fell face first into the ground. He forced his face around and locked eyes with his younger brother, despite the pain. "...You...bastard...!" he hissed before the pain and the blood loss send him into blissfull unconsciousness.

Goku thought it had ended much easier than he had ever expected, but then again, that was a pretty nasty wound Piccolo's attack had inflicted. But what should he do now? Every rational part in his body screamed for him to kill this man while he still had the chance. He was a ruthless killer. He had kidnapped his precious son Gohan. He had threatened his friends and wanted to kill every single person on the entire planet! This so called brother of his, represented everything that he hated. And yet...he couldn't force himself to kill him. Not like this. In the heat of battle was one thing but now...he just lay there, completely defenseless. He wouldn't be any better than him if he killed him now. This man had told Goku that he was a member of the Saiyajin race. A people who had made their living by exterminating innocent races of people, only so that they could sell their planets to the highest bidder. Goku wanted nothing of that! But still...Goku had his whole life wondered where he came from. Who were his parents? What were they like? This man held all the answers to his past. He wanted, no he needed to know. No matter how horrible the answers might be, he still needed to know. There was another thing that bothered him. When he had looked into the eyes of his older brother, he had looked so...betrayed.

He let go of his tail and turned to Piccolo. "Piccolo, I want you to keep an eye on him but don't kill him."

The Namekian was more than a little surprised but agreed non the less. It wasn't like Raditz could do anything at the moment.

Goku walked towards the crater where Raditz' space pod was located. He ripped of the door from its hinges and out flew Gohan who immediately clung on to his father, sobbing heavily into his orange gi. Goku tried his best to calm down his son and it didn't take long before the little boy fell asleep in his father's secure embrace. The days events had been to much for the little four year old. He walked back to Piccolo who had by now regenerated his arm and dressed himself in his regular white cloak and turban.

"Any particular reason why you don't want to kill him," his arch nemesis asked.

"It just...wouldn't be right," Goku hesitantly replied.

"Do you honestly believe that he would have done the same for you?" he inquired. Goku just kept silent, held Gohan a little tighter and looked at the ground. "You're too good for your own good, you know that Son Goku?" Piccolo growled.

Goku looked into his eyes and said, as calmly as possible. "No one can be 'too good' Piccolo. Everyone deserves a second chance, even those who have done the most evil. But if I had had to, I would have willingly sacrificed my own life if it meant that I could stop him from hurting those that I care about."

Piccolo chuckled. "Sacrifice yourself huh, but then those friends of yours would most likely collect the Dragon Balls in order to wish you back to life."

Goku smiled softly. "Yeah. I guess they would."

Little did anyone of them know that their converstion was being owerheard.

Their entire conversation was sent via Raditz' scouter to both of his comrades who were located on a planet far away on the other side of the galaxy.

Both of them were sitting in the middle of a forest on the planet wich seemed to be mostly covered in swamps. Both of them wore the same kind of battle armor that Raditz did.

"Raditz has lost," said one of them. He was very tall and extremely muscular. A neatly trimmed mustache covered his upper lip and his bald head seemed to almost glisten in the sun.

"What a loser. Letting himself get beaten by such weaklings," snarled his companion. He was a fairly short Saiyajin, with black hair formed in a haircut that seemed to defy all the laws of gravity. His body was covered in a tight, blue jumpsuit and a vhite and yellow version of the battle armor. He was currently feasting upon one of the planet's inhabitants.

"We should probably await with conquering this planet," said the tall one.

"Yes, those 'Dragon Balls' sounds interesting. If they can bring back a person from the dead, then they should surely be able to grant other wishes as well. Let's go," the short one replied as he rose to his feet.

"We could always...," the tall one began but was cut off by his partner.

"If it's got something to do with Raditz then forget about it Nappa. We don't need a weakling like him. We should rather wish for something better, like immortality. Just think about it. An eternity of glorious battle, wouldn't that be something."

"Yeah, that sounds great! You've always been the smart one Vegeta." He grinned evily. "So first we exterminate the vermin of the Earth, then we get the Dragon Balls to attain immortality and no one in the entire universe will be able to stop us," the Saiyajin known as Nappa exclaimed.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Vegeta replied with a cold smirk.

Goku and Piccolo heard something and looked up into the sky. A yellow howercar with the Capsule Corporation logotype was aproaching quickly. It landed not that far away from them and three people stepped out from it. A bearded old man, a beautiful turquoise haired woman and a short, bald man who wore the same kind of gi that Goku wore. Goku's three friends Muten Roshi, Bulma and Kuririn quickly ran up to them.

Bulma was the first one to speak. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Goku answered. "A little sore is all."

"I knew you would beat him," Kuririn exclaimed.

Goku smiled and then looked at his sleeping son. "Bulma, can I ask you of something?" he said.

"Sure, but what?" she replied surprised.

"There's something I have to do. Can you take care of Gohan in the meantime?" he handed her the small child, carefully so that he wouldn't wake him. He then walked over to his brother. He had lost a lot of blood and wouldn't live for long if this continued. With some difficulty he seated the heavy Saiyajin on his back. "Kintoun!" he called out. It didn't take long for his trusted golden cloud to arrive. He got on top of it after some trouble because of the heavy extra weight. He turned towards his friends, smiling. "This will hopefully not take to long" he said. Then he flew off, leaving three startled humans and one Namekian behind.

**A/N:** So what did you think? Did you like it? Didn't you like it, and if so what can I improve? Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N:** Yay! First update. I thank all of you who left such kind reviews after the first chapter. It truly motivates me to keep writing this story. I hope you will like this next chapter, wich is much longer than the last one.

**Chapter 02**

**Memories**

Faster and faster flew Goku through the air. He could feel how his brother's heartrate got slower by the minute. "Kintoun!" he shouted. "Faster!" The little cloud instantly complied and pushed itself to its very limits. Goku looked up and smiled as he saw Karin Tower towering up into the sky. He quickly flew to the top of the mighty tower, where a very strange house was located.

He stopped his trusted cloud, took a deep breath and... "KARIN-SAMA!!!! COME OUT HERE!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

It didn't take long before the master of the tower came to greet his former pupil. The little, and slightly chubby, white cat cleared one of his big ears with a "finger", with a newly awakened look on his face.

"What do you want Goku?" he asked in a slightly annoyed tone. "You know that the acoustics in here isn't exactly built for shouting. It's going to take a week before I'll get the ringing out of my ears. And I had such a nice little nap as well. I dreamt about..." Goku cut of the little feline martial arts master.

"I need Senzu. Fast!" Karin took a look at what his greatest pupil was carrying on his back and then hurried away on his little cat legs to get some of the magical beans that only he knew how to make.

When he got back shortly after, he handed Goku a little bag with the beans. He said his thanks, placed the bag behind his belt and then took off, straight upwards past the Karin Tower.

He flew as fast as he could, but Kintoun had a limit to how high it could go. When it reached that limit, Goku started to gather ki to his legs and then jumped high up into the air. Before gravity had started to take its toll on him, he concentrated his ki flow in his entire body and started to fly on his own the last part of the way towards the floating palace of Kami-sama.

Goku landed on the white marble floor, panting slightly. He was surprised to see Kami outside of his palace, just as if he had been expecting him. Goku was just about to speak when the old guardian raised his hand as a sign for him to remain silent.

"I know why you are here Goku," he said. "I saw everything that happened from up here. What I want to know is, what do you intend to do now?"

"I...I don't really know," he aswered truthfully. "I know that he's a serious threat, but I just can't kill him. Not like this." He looked at Kami. Silently begging him to help him with his dilemma.

"He also holds the answers to your past, am I right?" The aged Kami let out a heavy sigh. "There might be a way to keep the world safe and yet not kill him." Goku instantly looked hopeful as Kami continued. "But there's no guarantee that it will work. In the end, it's all up to him. Come, we have to hurry if we don't want him to die of blood loss." And with that, they entered the holy palace, supporting the beaten Saiyajin between them.

OoOoOoO

Darkness. That's what greeted Raditz when he opened his eyes. It was so dark that he wondered if he had actually opened his eyes to begin with. He was too tired to really concern himself with this apparent lack of light. He yawned and then tried to remember where the hell he could be. He wasn't with Vegeta and Nappa, he could remember that far. Let's see, they had just been about to conquer a particularly tough planet and he...was sent to bring someone to help them! Yes, that's right! He went to the planet called E... E-something. But who was he supposed to bring again? "Hm...ARGH! I HATE MORNINGS!!" he yelled in frustration.

His pondering was brought to an end as he heard a door that was being opened. He closed his eyes tightly shut as bright light hit him in the face. He slowly let himself get used to the light and squinted at whoever it was that stood in the doorway. His eyes instantly flew open as he saw who it was and all of his memories from the day returned to him at once.

"Kakarotto!" he roared in rage as he lunged for his brother. Or rather...he tried to. He didn't even get past a centimeter before agonising pain shot through his spine and he fell to the floor. When the pain had passed he took the chance to take a closer look at himself. He was surprised to see that his entire body seemed to be chained in some kind of weird shackles. After a closer inspection, and some movements, he noticed that whenever he moved, the shackles would apply pressure to his tail, render him completely helpless. He looked up at his younger brother and growled in hate and anger. "Kakarotto, you bastard! Let me out of here so I can kill you damnit!" He desperately tried to find a way so that he could move without hurting himself...with very little succes.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he heard a new voice say. He looked up to see who had entered the room this time. What he saw was someone who could very well be that green guy's great grandfather or something. "Those are custom made, and I really think that you should be a little more grateful. If it hadn't been for Goku here, then you would have, without a doubt, slowly bled to death," the old one declared.

Raditz was pretty surprised to hear this but returned to scowl at his two captors and thought about different ways to hurt them.

Kami turned to Goku. "Shall we start?" he asked.

Goku looked at his older brother and then at Kami and nodded. "I don't know what you're about to do. But if there is a chance that it will help, then go ahead."

Kami nodded and then turned towards the captivated Saiyajin. He raised his right hand before himself and closed his eyes. It didn't take long before beads of sweat started to fall from his wrinkled brow as he concentrated himself, his outstretched hand started to glow with white ki. Suddenly his eyes flew open. He pulled back his hand and then slammed his palm onto Raditz' forehead. "Jajjimento!" he called out and the white ki left his hand and seemed to surround Raditz for a brief moment, before he roared in pain and passed out once again.

"What happens now?" Goku asked as Kami retracted his arm, panting heavily.

"Now, we wait. The rest is up to him." With that, both of them left the room. Slowly closing the doors, thus leaving the room in complete darkness again.

OoOoOoO

In his unconscious state, Raditz was being bombarded with memories. Strong ones, things that he vaguely remembered and even events that he had forgotten completely. Every single detail that had happened in his life started to come back to him and he started to remember everything clearly.

He remembered his home on Planet Vegeta. He remembered his father, Bardock, the way that he would sometimes look at him with pride in his eyes and tell him stories about his many battles on planets far away. He remembered how he used to play with his older cousin Tullece, before he went to the Academy. But most importantly, he remembered his mother. The mother that would always tuck him in at night when he was little and she was home from missions. He remembered how she would scold him whenever he did something really stupid, he remembered her wonderful cooking and he even remembered her own personal smell that always managed to make him feel safe and secure when he was young.

The years passed and he remembered how he entered the Saiyajin academy shortly after he had gotten eight years old. It was there were he had met Kyuuri, the girl that instantly became his best friend.

They would always spar with each other. They shared their dreams and secrets with each other. Even if everything else in the world turned upside-down, they knew that they could always count on each other.

He remembered the day of his final exam at the Academy. Most of them weren't even thirteen yet, but if they passed the test, they would be assigned to real teams and would start conquering planets in the name of Planet Vegeta to be sold on the intergalactic market. But that wasn't the only reason why that day had been so special. That was also the day that his little brother had been born.

This memory became even more evident than the previous ones. He could remember the sounds of his boots on the tiled hospital floor, he remembered the smell in the hallways and even the feeling when his hand had accidently touched one of the curtains at one moment. It was just as if he was there all over again.

He had come to his mother's room, silently opened the door and went inside. His mother lay in a half sitting position in one of the hospital beds, the sheet cowered her lower body and her long black hair flowed down her back. She was slowly cradling a bundle in her arms. When she had looked up at him, she looked happier and more beautiful than Raditz had ever seen her in his entire life. Her eyes had seemed to beam with happines and life. She beckoned for him to come closer. He went to her side and looked down at his newborn baby brother.

An unruly mess of black hair adorned his head as he had looked up at him with curious black eyes, all the while sucking on his little thumb.

Raditz had smiled at him and then looked at his mother. "What's his name?" he asked her.

"Kakarotto," she had answered firmly, the smile never leaving her face.

"Kakarotto," he repeated. He liked it. "So, what's his power level? Have the doctors checked it yet?" He couldn't wait to teach his little brother everything that he had learned at the Acadamy. It would surely give him an advantage over his fellow students when he would enter after he turned eight.

The Saiyajin woman had instantly become somber and hugged her child tightly to her chest.

"Mother, what's wrong?" Raditz wondered, suddenly a little worried.

"He's..got a power level of two," she had finally said sadly.

Raditz instantly knew what that meant. The weakest children that were born were branded as failures, and shortly after they were born they were sent to those planets that were inhabitated by the weakest races, so that they at least could be of some use. Even though they were only sent to planets with a moon, the conquering could take very long. Several years wasn't an uncommon thing.

"When will he leave?" he had asked, concern evident in his voice.

"In less than two weeks," she had answered. She looked up at her oldest son and took his hand in hers. "Raditz, I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you will look after him when he comes back. No matter what happans, you two will always be brothers. Nothing in the entire universe can change that. If something would happen to me and your father, then I need you to take care of him. Can you please promise me that Raditz?"

He looked down at her, smiling softly. "Of course mother."

She smiled back at him and then started to take of the two red sweatbands that se always bore and handed them to Raditz. "Here, take these," she had said. "Give one of them to Kakarotto-chan when you meet him the next time."

He had nodded and then put one of the sweat bands over his left bicep and the other one over his left thigh. He said his goodbyes to his mother and baby brother, and then went to the Acadamy to take his exam.

All of the students had the same kind of test. To purge a world with inhabitants that could prove to be difficult for a student. Each and everyone of the students were to be accompanied by a teacher who would judge their performances and Raditz had been lucky enough to be teamed up with his favorite teacher. A tatooed twenty seven year old Saiyajin named Bocha.

They had entered their space pods and entered the co-ordinates for their assigned planet and then they flew off into space. The trip would take a little longer than two weeks so they both entered the standard hyper sleep.

When they had landed, they immediately understood that something was very wrong. They had been assigned to a desert world, with inahabitants that had above average powerlevels and that lived in willages scattered across their planet. What they saw now was a green world, covered with rainforests with giant trees as far as the eye could see.

Before they could have contacted Planet Vegeta, they were attacked by a swarm of giant insects, three times as large as a fullgrown Saiyajin. Raditz had reached for his scouter and had been shocked to see that each and everyone of them had a power level of at least 2'000. He couldn't fight them! He barely had 600. Bocha-sensei had grabbed him and together they escaped as fast as they could into the rainforest.

Nightfall had come but they couldn't seem to get contact with Planet Vegeta. They only recieved static on their scouters. They were just about to come up with a plan when the insects appeared again. One of them dove quickly down towards Raditz with a sharp frontleg raised, ready to strike him were he stood. Bocha had pushed Raditz out of the way in the last second, sacrificing his own life for his student.

With his last breath he told Raditz to get to the pods as fast as he could. And that's what he did. He flew faster than he had ever flown before. He zigzagged his way between the large trees in an attempt to lose his pursuers, but he could still hear the buzzing of their wings as they were catching up with him and he pushed himself to his limits.

He had entered a clearing when they finally caught up to him and knocked him to the ground. He turned himself onto his back when heard them closing in on him, making loud clicking noises with their mandibles. He looked up at the night sky, thinking that everything was over, and that's when he saw it. The full moon. Everything became a red haze after that.

He had woken up in the medical facilities at Freeza's base over a week later. A large muscular Saiyajin, that he had never seen before, greeted him when he woke up. He told Raditz that Planet Vegeta had been hit by an enormous asteroid and that he was one of a mere handfull of survivors. It took several hours before he had fully understood what he had heard. His home had been destroyed. His family and all of his friends had died. He silently cried himself to sleep in his new, empty room in the soldier cuarters at Freeza's base that night.

He didn't get much time for grief at all. Already the next day, Freeza had a job for the three remaining Saiyajin. He sent them to a planet that produced many sorts of rare and extremely valuable ores. The only problem for the great warlord was that the local inhabitants didn't want to share them.

Even though he had been trained to become a killer, Raditz hadn't been prepared for this. He had felt sick to his stomach after he had killed a group of people with one of his ki blasts. Most of them had been kids, not even older than him. Just when he had been about to throw up, the tall Saiyajin named Nappa snarled at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you brat? You're a Saiyajin damnit!" He had raised his index finger and his middle finger and then destroyed a huge part of the city with a massive wave of ki. "A true warrior never shows compassion, and he shouldn't have any trouble killing his own brother if he had to. Remember that brat. That's the only way you can survive."

On planet Vegeta, he would have had a future. Now, he was nothing more than a slave. Freeza's army consisted of the strongest warriors from the strongest races throughout the universe and geneticaly enhanced mutant soldiers with awesome powers was being developed. What was the son of a couple of third class Saiyajin compared to that? His life was worth close to nothing now, but the chances that his brother could possibly still be alive was what kept him going.

Between missions, he could always count on recieving a beating from a random gang of Freeza's thugs and they would always beat him to the brink of death. Despising him, only because that he was a Saiyajin.

After one of those beatings, standing at the brink of unconsciousness, he remembered Nappa's words and he made a decision. He had to survive so that he could meet his brother. But in order to survive, he would have to get stronger. But if he wanted to get stronger, then he would have to kill his own emotions. It was only now that Raditz realised, that he had killed himself in order to survive in the harsh world back then.

After that, Raditz had become the very image of a Saiyajin. Cold, ruthless and only living to feel the thrill of battle.

His memories took a different turn now. He re-lived every single kill he had ever made in his life. But he realised something. The momories wasn't focused on him this time. They were focused on them. All the innocent people that he had killed. He knew what they had been thinking just before their lives were ended by his hand. He felt all of their agony of death just before he vaporised their bodies. He experienced all of their dying moments. One after another.

OoOoOoO

It had gone two hours since Goku and Kami had left the dark room, but it had only been recently that they had started to hear it. Goku closed his eyes tightly shut as he heard Raditz' agonised screams from the insides of the room. Not even the thick marble walls was enough to silence them.

"What...What did you do to him?" he asked the old guardian.

Kami let out a heavy sigh. Truly feeling as old as he was for the first time in a very long time.

"Jajjimento is a technique commonly used by the Oni in hell, to punish those who reside there. It forces a person to 're-live' his entire life. Joy, love and all other happy moments from their lives is shown to them. But...They also get to re-experience the bad times as well. Grief, sorrow and all the times that they have been at their lowest. Every wrong decision that they have ever made in their lives is shown right into their faces. And finally, they even get to feel all the pain that they inflicted upon innocent people. Your brother is most likely re-living all those times that he killed someone innocent."

The screaming died down and it was quiet once again. Goku was just about to go and see his brother but was halted by Kami.

"Give him a moment. He needs to think over what he has seen. What he has faced might turn him into a better person, but there is no guarantee that that will happen."

OoOoOoO

Raditz sat with his back against the cold marble wall in the dark room. He remembered every single detail of his life clearly now. It was awfully exhausting really, but his mind had never been clearer than now. How could he have gone so wrong? How could everyone of his fellow Saiyajin have been so wrong? All of those kids, whose parents he killed when they had tried to defend them from him. They had felt exactly the same pain as he had when he had been told what had happened to his home. They had all wept when they had seen their loved ones sacrificing their own lives for them, just like he had when Bocha-sensei took that hit that was intended for him.

He remembered when he had seen his brother for the first time in over twenty years. He couldn't believe that it had only happened some hours ago. He had been furious to find Kakarotto, tail-less and unable to remember anything of his programming. He had even told him straight to his face that he didn't want anything to do with either him or the Saiyajin race. He had felt that Kakarotto had betrayed him. Betrayed their mother. Betrayed their entire race.

The long haired Saiyajin turned his head and looked at his left bicep. Even though he couldn't actually see it, he knew that it was there. The sweat band that their mother gave him. Her words came back to him.

"_No matter what happans, you two will always be brothers. Nothing in the entire universe can change that." _

He closed his eyes and slumped his head against the wall. 'Kakarotto isn't the one who failed me,' he thought. 'I'm the one who failed him.'

Suddenly, his scouter beeped to life.

"I never knew you could scream that much Raditz. But then again, you always were the weak one," said the familiar monotone voice of his prince.

"Vegeta...?"

"Don't get your hopes up. I couldn't care less about what would happen to you right now. I just want you to deliver a message from me to your dear brother before he finishes you off. Tell him that we are coming, and that we expect him to hand over those 'Dragon Balls' when we arrive to Earth in one year. Have a nice death Raditz."

The channel got silent, but Raditz honestly didn't care. He wondered what his prince had talked about though. He would deliver the message to Kakarotto anyways. The least he could do for the brother that he had failed, was to warn him for what was to come.

**A/N:** That was the first update. It might have been slightly rushed, but it had to be done for what I want to do with this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N:** Sorry for the relatively late update. There's a couple of reasons for this. 1.) When I wrote the first two chapters, I had a week long Fall Break. This meant that I could concentrate on writing this story. 2.) As soon as school started again, I was completely bombarded with homeworks, tests and other assignments that I had to do. I simply didn't have the time to focus on Brothers. And when I did have time well...read reason number three. ; 3.) Almost as soon as I had posted the second chapter, I started to watch Bleach and I just couldn't stop watching that show. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter.

**Chapter 03**

**A new chance**

Goku stood with the palm of his hand hesitantely placed upon the surface of the mighty marble door. He took a deep calming breath and then pushed forward. The darkness instantly gave way for the bright sun rays and Goku stepped into the room. He had to stifle a gasp when he saw his brother on the other side of the room. Raditz was sickly pale, with traces of sweat on his face, his eyelids were half closed and he had an unfocused and faraway look on his face.

Raditz looked up at his younger brother, and he smiled a tired and sad smile. Goku couldn't help but think about how broken he looked right now, so much different compared to the way he had looked and acted just a couple of hours ago.

"Hello, Kakarotto," he said, barely more than a whisper. Goku could only nod as he looked into his older brother's eyes and saw a myriad of emotions in those black orbs. Tiredness, sadness, pain, but most of all he saw regret.

For a long time they just looked into each others eyes. What Raditz saw was something he hadn't seen since before Planet Vegeta was destroyed. He saw sympathy, kindness and a desire to help. How could he do that? Raditz had kidnapped his son. Threatened to kill the little boy if Goku didn't kill a hundred innocent humans. How could he look at him with those kind of eyes? The same eyes as their mother's. Raditz looked down at the floor in shame.

"Kakarotto," he started, still looking at the floor. "I have something very important to tell you. After I'm done, you can kill me if you wish. I don't care anymore"

Goku was shocked. Did he really think that he was going to kill him? He who could never kill someone in cold blood, no matter the cause. He was going to say something to him, but chose to stay silent as Raditz looked up at him, desperation in his eyes, and he started to speak again.

"I was recently contacted by one of my comrades." He glanced briefly to his scouter to answer Goku's unspoken question. "They are coming Kakarotto. They will be here in less than a year. I think they heard you talk about something after you defeated me and it was transmitted directly to them via my scouter. They said that they wanted something called the 'Dragon Balls'and they wanted you to hand them over to them when they arrive. Both of them are much stronger than me." Raditz looked almost frantic now and his voice only got higher and higher after each passing word. "You have to get away Kakarotto! Take your family and get as far away from this planet as you can! Now kill me Kakarotto! If it wasn't for me then they wouldn't be after you! If it wasn't for me then you could have continued to live a peacefull life! Kill me! Ki...!"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Goku as he grabbed his brother by his collar, raised him off the ground and slammed him against the marble wall, hard enough to make it crack.

Raditz looked at his brother in utter shock. "Kakarotto...?" he whispered.

"Shut up..." Goku said as he held his head downcast, his bangs keeping his eyes hidden. His voice trembled almost as much as the arms that held Raditz against the wall. "I can't kill you so don't ask me to," his voice was hoarse and barely higher than a whisper.

Raditz scowled at that statement. "You don't know what I have done in my life Kakarotto," he growled. "I don't freakin deserve to live!" he shouted at his younger brother.

"Don't you dare say that!" Goku yelled back and locked eyes with him, his eyes now burning with a fierce fire "Everyone deserve to live, no matter what they have done in the past. I know that you have done horrible things in the past, but I also know that you deeply regret them now. I saw it in your eyes. I heard it in your voice. Just the fact that you want me to kill you for what you have done, proves to me that you deserve another chance in life. What will your death acomplish Raditz? Can you tell me that? Killing you won't solve anything! It won't make anyone happy and it sure as hell won't bring those that you killed back to life."

"Then what can I do?" Raditz asked as he closed his eyes in frustration. "How can I go on living with myself after everything that I have done. I even intended to kill your son, my own nephew dammit! What kind of heartless monster have I become if things like that doesn't even face me anymore."

Goku smiled slightly and continued in a much gentler voice. "If you say that you regret what you have done, then I believe you. If you say that you want to get a chance to atone for what you have done, then I believe you." Goku lowered Raditz so that he could stand with his feet at the floor again before continued to speak. "Everyone deserves a second chance Raditz. Even you. I truly believe that you can become a better man if you were given the cance, and I intend to give that to you."

Raditz didn't know what to say. Despite all the horrible things he had done. Despite all of the people that he had murdered. Despite threatening his brother's son, that very same brother was now willing to forgive him. To give him a second chance. He closed his eyes again and struggled to come up with something to say.

"How... How can you say that? You don't even know me."

"Then let me get to know you. Let me get to know the brother that I never had. I also want to know more about our parents, no matter how horrible the answers might be, I still need to know."

When Raditz was about to reply, a cough was heard. Both brothers turned their heads towards the sound. In the doorway stood the elderly Kami.

The old guardian took a step forward before he started to speak. "I apologize for interrupting you two, but we have no time to waste. I heard about the other Saiyajin that will arrive in less than a year. We all have to prepare ourselves for their arrival if we wish to protect this world."

Goku let go of Raditz and turned to face his mentor. "You're right Kami-sama. I only got one year to get stronger. Let's start the training right away", he declared as he pumped his fist into the air.

Kami just shook his head. "I have already taught you what I can. There's nothing more that I can teach you. Also, you can forget about training on your own. You simply wouldn't get strong enough in time."

Goku was greatly confused. If he couldn't train, what was there left to do?

Kami smirked as he read Goku's face like one would read a book. "That is if you trained in this world. There is a place where you just might manage to become much stronger than you ever could here on Earth."

Goku instantly became more hopeful at the prospect of a chance to get stronger. "Where Kami-sama? Tell me. I'll go anywhere if it means that I can protect my family and my friends."

"The place that I'm speaking of is "The realm of the dead". You will train under the legandary martial arts master known as Kaio-sama of The north galaxy. Under his tutelage you will hopefully get strong enough to face tha Saiyajin."

Goku blinked a couple of times. Had he heard right? The realm of the dead? "Kami-sama, I know that I'm not exactly the sharpest knife in the box, but isn't one supposed to be...well...dead in order to enter The realm of the dead?"

The old guardian just smiled at Goku's confusion. "Do not worry," he said. "I think I'll be able to pull some strings and get you in without the whole death part´. After all, I am the kami of Earth."

"But what about my friends? We have to warn them to. I have to tell my family that I will be away for almost a year. Oh man, Chi-Chi is going to get really mad at me," he sighed.

"Don't worry about your friends. I have decided to bring them here and train them for the upcoming battle. Mister Popo is waiting outside and he will go and inform everyone about the situation as soon as we leave. I am going to teach them what I have taught you. But as far as your family is concerned, you don't have time to say goodbye since every moment is of the essence. We will have to leave immediately."

Goku nodded and took a step towards Kami, but was stopped as he heard the voice of his brother.

"Wait," was all he said.

Goku turned around and mentally slapped himself at how he could almost forget about Raditz.

"Kakarotto," the longhaired Saiyajin started, "even though I don't deserve it, I wish to atone for what I have done. I want to help you fight against my former comrades. That's why I'm asking you this. Please, take me with you."

Goku looked at Kami over his shoulder. Silently asking him if it would be okay. The old one sighed heavily and then walked towards the chained Saiyajin. He stopped right in front of him and looked sharply into his eyes. He stood there for sveral seconds, as if he was searching for something in those black orbs. When he found what he had been searching for, he flipped his fingers and the shackles instantly vanished into thin air. Raditz rubbed his wrists to get the numbness out of his fingers.

"So...how do we get to The realm of the dead?" he asked to break the silence in the room.

Kami extended his arms into the air, "Grab my arms," he said. The brothers did as they were told. Not even a second later, the weren't in the world of the living anymore.

OoOoOoO

"Okay, let's see if I get this straight," Kuririn said as he held his hand over his eyes in exasperation. He and the rest of the group had been waiting patiantly in the clearing where Goku had left them some hours ago. Goku still hadn't returned, but in his stead they were now facing some strange, genie like guy who was standing on a flying carpet and claimed that he was Kami-sama's servant. "There are two more Saiyajin, much stronger than Goku's brother, and they will be here in less than a year?" Kuririn continued.

"Yes," the genie like man said as he gave a nod.

"Goku's older brother, the same brother that knocked me through Roshi's house and kidnapped Goku's kid, has seen the error of his ways and Goku forgave him?"

"Yes, Mister Popo found that very heart-warming," he answered.

"And now the two of them are going to The realm of the dead in order to train together so that they can fight the other Saiyajin?"

Popo nodded. "Yes, that's pretty much all of it."

Kuririn took a deep calming breath. "Then can you please...tell me...if Goku...HAS COMPLETELY LOST HIS MIND??!!" he yelled only to get bonked on the head by Bulma. He looked at the blue haired beauty in a way that clearly said "why did you hit me for?" as he softly rubbed the growing lump on his bald head.

"Be quit!" she hissed through clenched teeth. "Do you want to wake him up?" she nodded towards the little boy who was still sleeping peacfully in her arms.

"Of course not!" he hissed back. "I'm just so frustrated. What the hell is Goku thinking? It's obvious that that guy can't be trusted," he stated as he crossed his arms over his chest and sat down on the ground indian style.

"You should have more faith in Goku," Bulma chided. "It wouldn't be the first time that he has changed someone for the better. Remember Yamucha, the desert bandit."

"And Tenshinhan, the crane assasin," interjected Muten Roshi.

"That was different. None of them were held bent on killing every human in the world," ojected Kuririn.

As the three friends where arguing amongst themselves, Piccolo was standing a small distance away from them in deep thought. To say that the selfproclaimed Demon King was slightly alarmed would be a big understatement. Two more Saiyajin were coming. Both of them stronger than Raditz, the most powerfull warrior that he had met in his entire life and who made him freeze in terror just by feeling the incredible power that he possessed. What kind of monsters were his companions if they were even stronger than that? It seemed like he would have to prolong the truce that he had formed with Son Goku and his friends, at least until they had defeated this new threat. If they defeated them. Piccolo had to admit that all the odds were against them, even if Raditz had indeed joined their side as Popo had stated. He had to even out the odds, even if just for a little, and he knew exactly how to do that.

The three friends stopped their argument as they watched Piccolo aproach them. Instinctivily they took a step backwards, fearing the mighty demon. Piccolo stood now in front of them and coldly said, "Hand over the boy."

Bulma held Gohan tightly to her chest and Kuririn took a battle stance. "You...you devil!" the former monk hissed. "Do you want to kill him now when Goku's not around? I wont let you do it!" he roared as he lunged at his adversary, only to be effortlessly swatted away and then crash to the ground face first. After he managed to struggle to his knees, he looked up only to see Piccolo towering over him.

"Pathetic fool," Piccolo snarled. "I do not wish to kill Son Goku's son. Not yet at least. As you already know, we will be facing a threat greater than anything this world has ever seen. I intend to train the boy for that confrontation."

All of them were stunned. "But Gohan-kun is just a little kid. He can't fight, and certainly not against something like that," said Bulma.

"During our battle against Raditz, in the moments were I got enough time to catch my breath, I could clearly feel an incredible power ooze from Son Gohan. If we shall have any chance for survival at all, then he needs to learn how to control that power. Now hand over the child woman, or I'll gladly kill you all!" Piccolo demanded.

She reluctantly obeyed and handed him the small boy, carefully so that she wouldn't wake him up. Then Piccolo took off into the sky. Bulma, Kuririn, Muten Roshi and Mister Popo watched him flew off into the distance until they could no longer see him. Kuririn closed his hands hardly at his sides, silently cursing his own weakness. Bulma looked down at the ground as a single tear ran down her cheek and wet a couple of strands of the green summer grass on the ground. Son-kun...I'm so sorry,´ she thought.

**A/N:** So what did you think about this chapter? Please tell me if the characters start to act too out of character. I really try to keep them in character as much as I can. Well, see you next time. Read and review!


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N:** I am soooo sorry that you had to wait so ling for this update. I hope you don't hate me to much for this. Well anyways I hope you like this chapter and I hope to have the next chapter out much sooner than this. Read and Review!

**Chapter 04**

**Snake Way**

Enma Daio pinched the bridge of his nose as he took a deep calming breath, and then let out a heavy sigh of exasperation. It wasn't exactly easy being the supreme judge of the dead and departed. It was a thankless job, having to put up with obnoxious souls everyday, working 24/7 shifts and without any dental plan. Don't get him wrong, he understood perfectly well the great importance of his job and took great pride in doing his job to the full extent of his capabilities. It was his duty to make sure that every single soul in the entire universe recieved a fair trial and was sent to the right place to spend his or her afterlife.

When one would stand before the mighty Enma Daio, they would have three possible outcomes of their short, but personal trial. If they had lived a good life. Taking their time to help their fellow - whatever they were – once in a while or just been pretty decent people, then they could look forward to "live" an eternety in Heaven. On the contrary to what many religous zealots seemed to believe, faith and commitment to ones religion did NOT automaticly grant one a place in paradise. Enma Daio had lost count eons ago on how many religious fanatics that he had sent to Hell.

Hell. The place were all people who had commited outragous crimes in their lives were sent. Massmurderers, serial rapists and psycopathic monsters, they all dwelled there in order to be punished for their crimes.

There were also a third altenative. If a person didn't really deserve to enter heaven, but wasn't bad enough to be sent to hell, he or she would go through a procedure that completely cleansed the soul and made it reborn in a new body. In other words, to say that the giant Oni known solely as Enma Daio had a hectic job, would be a big understatement.

The day had started really well. Fewer people than normal had died, wich meant less paperwork for him, and he really hoped that he would be able to take his first five-minute-break for over two hundred years. That...proved to not be the case.

He opened his eyes and looked sternly at the three creatures that were currently giving him a major headache. He had instantly recognized the Kami of Earth, whom he had met a couple of times during the last millenia whenever said Kami had had some bussines to do in The realm of the dead. His gaze moved to the two brothers that the Kami had introduced to him. Both of them had charcoal black hair and eyes with the same colour, but if you just looked at their faces, then you could fairly easily tell that they were related to each other. But that was as far as similarities went. The younger one of them had unruly hair that pointed in all directions, wore an orange and blue gi, looked very naive and had an aura of innocense and goodness around him. The older one on the other hand had a mane of very long spikey hair that almost reached to his knees. He had sharp eyes and a face hardened by painful experiences and memories. His left eye was covered by a strange piece of equipment and he wore some kind of black and brown battle armor that had a big hole in the right side of it, but the skin underneath seemed to be perfectly unharmed, and he had a furry tail wrapped around his waist like a belt. Enma Daio's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched him. He knew his kind very well. The Saiyajin. Bloodthirsty soldiers for hire that spread chaos throughout the galaxy solely for money and the thrill of battle. All of them had died over tventy years ago and most of them recieved a one way ticket to the lowest depths of Hell. What the Earth Kami was asking for was outragious! Even if the younger one of them had a completely clean record.

"So..." started the giant red Oni as he rested his bearded chin on his neatly folded enormous hands, placed on his equally enormous desk, right behind a (relatively) small sign that read "big boss". "Let's see if I've got everything straight, just so we are clear. You want me to let two Saiyajin, two living Saiyajin, into The realm of the dead so that they can go and train under Kaio-sama in order to defeat two other Saiyajin, who threaten to kill every living thing on Earth? Is that correct?"

"Yes that would sum everything up I presume," answered Kami as he looked up at the intimidating form of the great Enma Daio, supreme judge of the dead and departed.

"HAVE YOU GONE SENILE EARTH KAMI?!" he bellowed as he slammed his giant hands down at his desk, hard enough to make the entire floor tremble and all the occupants in the room had to struggle in order to stay on their feet. "Do you have any idea how many rules I would have to break in order to let those two do what you have planned? Just by letting them in here you have broken exactly 296,5 rules and regulations. Not since this bussines was established has a living mortal soul been allowed to enter. I'm truly sorry for the fate of your planet, but I'm not letting them in and that's final!" He then turned on his chair so that his back was facing Kami, Goku and Raditz.

Goku looked completely shocked. Wouldn't they be allowed to enter? Would all of those he loved die in a year, just because this guy wouldn't let them see Kaio-sama? Raditz on the other hand, had completely other thoughts going through his mind at the moment. His right eye twitched furiously as he thought; 'That giant arrogant son of a bitch! I ought to shove my foot deep into his big fat...!'

Kami just smirked. His predecessor had told him that when dealing with Enma Daio, there were certain buttons one could press in order to make him see things your way. He let out an overly dramatic sigh. "I guess it cannot be helped then. Earth is doomed. Over six billion people is going to die." At the mention of this high number of people, one of Enma Daio's ears twitched. This didn't go unnoticed by Kami and he smirked inwardly. "And think about all the animals," he continued as he paced back and forth, in a seemingly random pattern. "I would't want to be in your shoes by then Enma Daio-sama. The mere thought of having to go through that huge amount of paperwork, in your already tight schedule, makes me shudder. Oh if there only was a way that we could save our planet. But alas, that seems to not be the case."

The mighty judge then span around on his chair and slammed his fist down on his desk a second time. "Okay, I get your point!" he roared, his face even redder than before and Goku could have sworn that he saw steam coming out of the giant Oni's ears. The giant corrected his horned helmet that had almost fallen off his head and then cleared his throat.

"Alright, I'll let them enter. But only on one condition."

"And what would that be?" asked Kami as he made a victory sign behind his back.

"You will have to fill out all the necessery documents that is required for them to be allowed to fully enter The realm of the dead."

Kami nodded. It was a much smaller price than he would have ever expected.

"You can start after the boys have left. I'll let one of my staff-members guide them to Snake Way, but after that, they'll be on their own. Don't expect any more help from me."

One of the Oni that had been standing silently at one of the sides of Enma Daio's desk, now walked towards the two Saiyajin brothers. He could have been easily mistaken for a regular office worker from Earth if it hadn't been for the pair of horns that portruded from his head.

"If you would kindly follow me, I will lead you to Snake Way," the Oni said politely after bowing for the two brothers.

"Right," said Goku before turning to Kami. "I guess we'll see you in a year then, Kami-sama?"

"Hopefully, yes," answered the elderly guardian of Earth. "Now, make sure to train hard, both of you. The fate of Earth might very well be lying in your hands."

"Don't worry, we'll make sure to be ready for the arrival of the other Saiyajin."

He waved goodbye to Kami and then both Goku and Raditz followed their guide out of the courtroom.

As soon as he was sure that they had left the room and were out of hearing range, Enma Daio let out a heavy sigh. "What were you thinking Earth Kami?" he asked. "Son Goku might be the purest of the pure, but the other one... Don't you know what their kind have done?"

Kami let out a sigh of his own. "I know enough. I heard every word he said to Goku as I watched their meeting on Kame-Island from my palace. But after I used Jajjimento on him, he seemed to have changed."

The giant Oni's eyes widened at this, only to narrow again a second later. "How do you know he's sincere about this? Many of those that have been subjected to that techique in Hell hasn't shown any true signs of remorse, no matter how awful their crimes were."

"I wouldn't have brought him here if I wasn't sure that he had truly become a better man. As I looked into his eyes, I swore to myself that if I found any traces of deception in his soul, I would have killed him on the spot, no matter how much that would have pained Goku. But to my relief there wasn't any. I only saw remorse and a deep desire to redeem himself. I don't think he was evil to begin with, no one is, but that he simply went through many painful experiences that no one should ever have to."

"I guess I will simply have to trust you then," Enma Daio said after letting out another sigh. "But still, if I hear that those boys have caused any sort of trouble, it will be on your ass! You've got that?"

"Yes, yes," kami answered, waving him off. "Now, I believe there were some forms that I was supposed to sign?" He wanted to have this done quickly. Goku and Raditz weren't the only ones that would be busy this year. It had taken him almost three years to teach Goku everything that he knew about martial arts, and now he would have to do the same in only one year, but with five students this time!

Enma Daio got an evil gleam in his eyes. He rested his chin on his folded hands and chuckled evily.

"Ah, yes. The forms. How could I have forgotten about that issue," he said with a wicked cheshire-cat grin plastered on his face. He raised one hand and snapped his fingers. Two office Oni instantly appeared in a puff of smoke, and both of them were pulling a wheelbarrow each that were so filled with papers that Kami couldn't even see the Oni that were pulling them.

"You'll have to read and fill in each and every one of them carefully," said Enma Daio with a malicous grin on his face.

Kami looked at the wheelbarrows, then at Enma Daio and then at the whelbarrows again. The elderly guardian of Earth could slowly feel how the single largest shudder that he had ever experienced in his long life crawled up his spine. He briefly wondered if Earth was even worth this kind of work but quickly ended those thoughts. He let out a deep sigh and looked up at The supreme judge of the dead and departed with a defeated look on his face and asked a single question before he would have to start this most unpleasant task that fate had bestowed upon him.

"Do you have a pen?"

OoOoOoO

Goku and Raditz were now well on their way towards Snake Way. The, in heaven, legendary road that was the only possible way for one to reach the Kaio of the northern part of Milky Way. However, the trip from Enma Daio's courtroom to the head of the snake was, at least in Raditz' point of view, far from enjoyable.

They were all crammed into a small three-wheeled car. Or rather, the term "small" didn't really do the size of the vehicle any justice. It was tiny. It had only two seats, one for the driver and one for a passanger right behind the front seat. Two Office-Oni would have easily been able to get into the small vehicle and still have had a decent amount of space left. But the thing is that Office-Oni are all pretty much below average in terms of height, at least according to human and Saiyajin standards. In other words, Raditz and Goku didn't have that much space to share in the small car.

Raditz had his face pressed against the window while having his little brothers elbow in the back of his neck in a very uncomfortable way. As he looked out of the window he noticed one thing. There wasn't much to see at all. Only clouds. Clouds, clouds and even more clouds as far as the eye could see. What was strange about them though, was that they all had a golden colour. Kinda like the cloud that his brother had flewn on when when he had come to fight him.

Goku tried to break the silence and started a conversation.

"So, who is this Kaio-sama? Do you know anything about him?" he asked their guide and driver.

"I would also like to know that," said Raditz. "I mean, if we are supposed to train under this guy, some information would be appreciated."

"Kaio-sama is the highest ranking god in the northern part of Milky Way. Only Dai Kaio-sama and the Kaioshins are his superiours. He is known as a brilliant martial artist in this realm," answered the Oni.

"Wow," exclaimed Goku. "He sounds really strong. I'm really looking forward to start our training. Aren't you excited about this Raditz?" he asked his brother.

"Sure," muttered the long haired Saiyajin warrior. Truth to be told, hr didn't really have any high hopes about them being able to defeat his former comrades. No matter what kind of training they would go through. Nappa was an elite class warrior, born in one of the noble houses of Planet Vegeta. A warrior who was known for his absolute ruthlessnes on the battle field, wich Raditz had been witness to on countless occasions. He loved the killings. He loved to see the terror in the peoples eyes. To hear them beg for mercy. To feel how their bones broke in his massive hands. To smell the smell of their flesh burnt to ashes. It was all a game for him. A game he enjoyed to the fullest. Raditz felt sick as he thought how he, just some hours ago, had barely been any better than him. And Nappa wasn't even the one that worried him the most. It was Vegeta. Prince Vegeta of Planet Vegeta. As calculating and as merciless, if not even more so, as his father, King Vegeta VI, had been. As soon as he had been born, he had been ranked as a super-elite-Saiyajin. The highest rank a Saiyajin could be born as. And now he was one of the strongest Saiyajin that had ever been born on Planet Vegeta. How could they possibly be able to defeat monsters like them?

Raditz was brought out of his inner musings as the car stopped, signaling that they finally were at the so called Snake Way. After Raditz had struggled his way out of the tiny car, without breaking it, and got the blood back to his legs, he decided to have a look at the Snake Way.

Snake Way really lived up to it's name. The start of the road was formed as the head of a giant, horned snake that looked like it could easily swallow Raditz whole.

"So this is Snake Way? What do we do now?" asked Goku.

"Follow the snake. It will take you to Kaio-sama," said the small Oni.

Goku jumped up on top of the head of the snake and gazed towards the horizon, in hope to be able to see where the road stopped. But the serpent zigzagged it's way for as long as Goku could see and well beyond that.

"It seems to be pretty long..." he stated.

"Yes, it is said to be one million kilometers long," said the Oni.

"O...One million kilometers?!" exclaimed Goku shocked.

"He's right, Kakarotto," stated Raditz as he held a finger pressed to one of the buttons on his scouter and a couple numbers started showing up on the green piece of plastic glass that covered his left eye. "According to my scouter, there is a pretty high power level about one million kilometers in that direction."

"One million kilometers...Has anyone been able to do it?"

"Only Enma Daio-sama. And that was about one hundred million years ago," said the Oni.

"Well, if that giant can do it, perhaps we can too." Goku turned towards his brother with a smile on his face. "Are you coming...Big-brother?"

Raditz was shocked. Did Kakarotto actually call him...? As Raditz looked at his little brother for a split second, he realized something. His little brother might look just like their father in appearance, but his eyes and his smile made him look just like their mother. Raditz briefly glanced at the red sweat band that cowered his left bicep, and his lips curved into a smile of his own. His first genuine smile since before Planet Vegeta had been destroyed. Maybe...Just maybe they would actually be able to defeat Nappa and Vegeta together. "Sure little brother. Sure," he said and jumped up to the snake's head next to him.

"Now remember this. Below those clouds is Hell, so make sure that you don't fall off the snake," warned the Oni.

Raditz and Goku nodded before looking at each other.

"I bet I'll get there before you do Raditz," Goku said challengely.

"Hmph. Not a chance Kakarotto," Raditz retorted with his lips turned into a cocky smirk.

They channeled their ki in their legs and jumped off in a mighty jump. Then they focused the ki-flow in their entire bodies and flew off at high speed towards Kaio-sama.

**A/N: **Again, I'm really sorry for the late update. I don't really know what happened but it should have been done a lot sooner than this. I might have suffered from that horrible disease known as writers block I've heard so much about. I'm not to happy with all the scenes and some were kinda difficult to make. I had also intended to include the trip on Snake Way in this chapter, but later decided against it since that would have meant that you would have been forced to wait longer. Well, I hope you liked it and I hope that you continue to read this story. I'll start answering your reviews in the next A/N in the next chapter so READ AND REVIEW!


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Sorry again for the late updateI actually started writing the first part of this chapter during the days after I submitted the previous chapter, but then I sortof forgot about it. I'll try to update faster in the future but I can't promise anything. Well, with that said I think it's time for...**ChaosGhidorah's Review-Answering-Machine!!**

Maric: Sorry, can't do that. I've already planned who Raditz' goona hook up with ;) . Besides, Princess Snake isn't even gonna appear in this story. Read further below if you wan't to find out why.

DBZ Fanattic: Thanks.

Simply Perfection: Thank you. I apreciate your kind words and hope you'll continue read this story.

Writer-Person: Thanks and sorry if you had to wait for long. I hope that you haven't lost interest in my story.

Dark-Sephy: Thank you very much. Your support (as well as the support of my other readers) means alot to me and motivates me to continue writing this story. As I have said before, I have seen very little of the anime (less than 20 episodes of DBZ but almost all of the movies) but I have read the whole manga. I wouldn't really be able to write about a person that I don't know anything about now would I? Therefore, it would be highly unlikely that I would add anime-only-characters to this story (although I might add some characters from the movies, like I did with Tullece in ch2, or characters from the few episodes that I've actually seen). In other words, Princess Snake, Mez, Goz and Kaiou's cricket servant Gregory will NOT appear in this story.

Taeniaea: Chapter Five is out when you read this!! D

Sith Worshipper: That was a minor spelling error on my part. Somehow I pressed "M" when I should have pressed "B". Thanks for telling me and the problem has now been dealt with.

Millenium Ring: Thanks. The training will start in the next chapter.

Now, here comes chapter five. Read and review everybody!

**Chapter 05**

**The Journey Over the Giant Snake**

The two Saiyajin brothers were now well on their way on their journey to find Kaio-sama at the end of the seemingly neverending Snake Way. They would fly, run or when Raditz sometimes became irritated at the "slow" pace they were traveling at, he would simply grab a hold on Goku and then fly off at a speed that Goku wasn't even close to match yet. If Raditz had simply decided to travel at his own pace, he would have reached the end of the road much faster than what they were currently doing. But he didn't wan't to leave his little brother's side. Not now when they were finally getting to know each other.

One might wonder how they were able to keep themselves going. After all, Saiyajin are known throughout the universe, not solely by their thirst for battle, but also for their gluttonous appetite. A Saiyajin needs a great amount of food to keep their metabolism in order, and a hungry Saiyajin would simply not be able to fight at his/her full capacity. And as they were traveling on the back of the mighty serpent, there wasn't an edible thing in sight. And why should there be? Such material things as food wasn't really needed in The realm of the dead. How could they keep themselves from dying of starvation? Three days after they set out on their journey, Raditz got the answer to that very question.

"...So hungry...need...food..." muttered the longhaired Saiyajin as he lay collapsed on the snake road, his empty stomach grumbling loudly in protest.

"Hungry you say?" asked Goku. He fumbled slightly with a small bag that was tied to his belt and picked up something from the insides of it. It looked like some kind of green bean. Nothing special about it.

"What's that?" asked Raditz hoarsily.

"It's a Senzu," answered Goku cheerfully. "Here, try it," he said as he put it in Raditz mouth.

Raditz started chewing on the small vegetable, not really expecting much. Such a puny bean couldn't possibly ease the horrible hunger that was currently tormenting his poor stomach. But as he swallowed, he was greatly surprised to feel a very pleasant warmth flow through his entire body. He was even more surprised to feel that he wasn't hungry any more. He was actually surprisingly...full. What a hell was that thing that he had just eaten?

"What...was that thing?" he asked as he raised himself to his feet once again.

Goku grinned at his older brother as he started to explain. "That was a Senzu Bean. Karin-sama makes them, but I have no idea how though. They're able to heal almost any wound or injury, no matter how serious it is. Also, when you eat one, they'll keep you full for at least ten days. That's what he says anyways, but the longest I've ever been able to last on one of these is barely one week," he said as he held his hand under his chin, looking like he was very deep in thought.

"Any injury huh?" said Raditz as he put his hand over the skin that was no longer cowered by his armor. He now knew where his supposedly mortal wound had gone without leaving a single trace. His little brother must have force fed him one of those beans after he had passed out because of the blood loss. He was just about to thank him for what he had done, but then a thought suddenly hit him and his eye started to twitch.

"Kakarotto," he spoke, trying to sound as calm as he possibly could. "How many of those beans have you had since we set out on this quest?"

"Well, only one. I took one as soon as we left the snake's head," Goku answered thoughtfully.

"I see," Raditz continued as his eye twitched even more furiously than before. His calm facade falling piece by piece after each passing second. "So...Kakarotto...WHEN THE HELL WERE YOU PLANNING ON TELLING ME ALL OF THIS?!!"

Goku eeped at his brother's outburst and put his hands defensivly in front of him as he tried to calm Raditz.

"S-sorry Raditz. It must have slipped my mind," Goku said sheepishly as he started to slowly back away from the angry Saiyajin. "Look at the bright side. I gave you one before you starved to death, so nothing bad really happened right?" Even Goku could tell that he wasn't getting anywhere like this so he did what any mature man would do. He turned around and ran like there was no tomorrow.

"Oh no you don't! Come back here so I can beat the living crap out of you! Do you have the slightest idea how hungry I was?!" bellowed Raditz as he took off after his brother.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" screamed Goku as he tried his best to keep himself a step ahed of his older brother.

OoOoOoO

As the days passed by, the two brothers spent their time talking about their respective lives. Finally getting to know the brother both of them had to grow up without. Goku told Raditz how he was raised by the kind martial arts master Son Gohan on Mount Pauzu. He told him how he first met Bulma, the second human (and the first girl) he had ever met, and how he learned about the magical Dragonballs as they set out on their great adventure. He basically told Raditz everything about his life on Earth. How he had trained under Muten Roshi alongside with Kuririn, the former Shaolin monk who became his best friend, his battle against the mighty Red Ribbon army and how he fought with the evil demon king Piccolo who sought to rule the Earth. Of course, he also mentioned how he married Chichi and of the day when his son, Gohan, had been born.

Raditz was amazed at all the things that his brother had experienced during his time on Earth. Raditz didn't want to admit it, but he felt jelous of the happy life that Goku seemed to have. He quickly crushed those thoughts though. After all, his brother had earned that happiness after all the good things he had done, unlike himself.

One day, Raditz thought it was about time to finally tell his brother about their parents. They both sat down indianstyle, facing each other, and Raditz started to talk.

"Kakarotto, what do you want to know about our parents?" he asked.

"Well, everything really," Goku answered. "How they were, how you all lived. Those kinds of things."

"I see. Well, I think I'll start with our father," Raditz beagan.

"I think you mentioned him before, at the time when we first met each other. Something about me looking exactly like him?"

Raditz smiled at that. "You sure do," he said. "Even the hair is the same. The only thing that makes you look different from him is that you don't have a scar," at this Raditz drew his thumb in a line over his left cheek for effect, "or scowl most of the time." Radtitz' eyebrows furrowed at what he was about to say next. "His name was Bardock. He was a great warrior, much more powerful than what was considered normal for a third-class Saiyajin, but like most of us, he prided his own strength and looked down at those who were weak with contempt."

"I see," said Goku. Saddened by the fact that it had been as he had feared. "And our mother? What about her?"

Raditz smiled with a faraway look on his face as he thought about her. It was true that the Jajjimento technique had forced him to relive all the horrible things that had happened in his life, etching them into his memory , but it also brought back the good and happy ones as well. During his long servitude under Freeza, the memories he had from his home, those about his best friend Kyuuri, the students and teachers at the academy and his parents, had grown duller by each passing day. But now, he remembered everything clearly.

"She was...different," he finally said. "She wasn't like the rest of us Saiyajin. Sure she loved a good fight, but she was also kind, caring and would smile alot more than was considered 'normal'. You remind me alot of her in more than one way," Raditz said. "I have no idea how our parents could marry each other in the first place, since they were the complete opposites of each other. But then again, the only times I ever saw father smile, a true smile and not that arrogant smirk we were so known for, was when he was with her. I think she was one of the few people he could actually open up to, and the only one who could warm his heart." Raditz smile faded and his expression beacame slightly somber as he looked down at the bare spot between them. "She didn't like the killing, not at all. She would always try her hardest to avoid it, but as a Saiyajin of Planet Vegeta it was her duty to go on the occasional purging mission now and then. Whenever she got back home, she would be depressed for days, not talking to anyone at all." After he had said that, Raditz looked up at his little brother again. "She really loved you. In my whole life I had never seen her as happy as she was when she held you in her arms."

"What was her name?" asked Goku.

"Sica. Her name was Sica," anwered Raditz. "Oh, and before I forget," he started as he removed his red band from his left leg and handed it out to his brother, "Mother always used to wear these, but she gave me them before I headed out on my first mission. She wanted me to give you one of them when I met you again."

Goku gratefully took the piece of clothing that was offered to him. The only memento left from their parents. He put it over his left bicep, just like Raditz had his, but although he was thinner than his brother and the band had been attached to his brother's thigh for years, it still wasn't loose at all. In fact, it attached itself nicely to his arm without any chance of falling off. It felt like a small piece had been missing in his life, but now when he knew who his parents were, it almost felt like that piece had finally been returned to him.

Raditz had a small, barely noticable, smile on his face as he watched his younger brother admiring the gift he had been given. He sighed and then said "I know that you don't want to be called by your birth given name, but that was the name that mother gave to you, so you'll just have to get used to the idea of me calling you 'Kakarotto', okay?"

Goku nodded. Even though he had felt very ucomfortable with being called by that name, he now understood and respected his brother's reasons of holding on to his Saiyajin name.

"Now let's go," said Raditz as he stood up. "We've wasted enough time for now and we shouldn't let that Kaio guy wait for us," he said with a smirk.

"Right, let's go," answered Goku before they took off again.

OoOoOoO

"Kakarotto?"

"Yes Raditz."

It had now been almost a month since their meeting with Enma Daio. They had been traveling almost constantly during that time, only stopping to eat a Senzu each once a week or to do what they were supposed to do right now. Sleep. Since they couldn't really tell night from day, they decided to simply stay for rest whenever they would get to tired to continue. The Snake Way was a pretty thin road. A grown man would be able to lie down and still have some elbow space left, but it wasn't much more than that. Fortunately, they had never accidently fallen off the road in their sleep, even though there always was a big risk of them doing so.

"When did you lose your tail?" asked the longhaired Saiyajin warrior.

"Hm, well Kami-sama removed it when I was training under him. He wanted to create a new moon and said that it would pose a problem, so he decided to remove it permanently. I've always wondered what he meant by that though..." answered Goku thoughtfully.

'He doesn't even know?' thought Raditz shocked. "Kakarotto, have you ever watched a full moon?" he asked.

"A couple of times," answered the orange clad Saiyajin. "Why would you want to know that?"

"Kakarotto," started Raditz, unsure on how to aproach this, "do you remember anything after seeing a full moon?"

"...No. Now that to mention it. Whenever I saw a full moon, everything would just get red and then I would wake up, without my clothes on me, and everything around me would be reduced to rubble, without me having a single memmory of what had happened. What is strange though is that those things only happened when I had a tail."

"Kakarotto, do you remember what I told you when I first met you? Whenever a Saiyajin with a tail looks upon a full moon, he or she reveals his 'true' form."

"Yes, but I didn't understand what you meant, and I still don't." Goku didn't like were this was going. Not at all.

"Kakarotto. When we Saiyajin gaze upon a full moon, we transform into Oozaru. Giant ape monsters with a destructive power ten times as great as our regular power level. That's one of the main reasons why we were so feared throughout the galaxies," he said all of this as he looked into his little brother's eyes.

'I see,' thought Goku, 'that would certainly explain a lot of things. Like how the arena buildings were destroyed during my first Tenkai Ichi Budokai and how we were able to escape from Pilaf's castle. But wait a minute, that would also mean...!' Gokus eyes suddenly widened in horror as realisation suddenly struck him. 'No...Grandpa!'

Raditz got worried as he saw the horror in his brother's eyes. "Kakarotto, what's wrong?" he asked.

"I...I just need to be alone for a while," he said as he raised himself to his feet. "Go to sleep Raditz."

Raditz nodded. Whatever it was, Raditz knew that his brother needed some time alone to think. Whatever it was that could make his brother look that horrified, must have been awful. As he saw him walk away, he almost regretted telling him about the whole thing. But then again, he would really need to know everything about what his future opponents was capable of. With those thoughts, he turned on his side and tried his best to get some sleep.

'It was I all along,' thought the orange clad hero as silent tears ran down his cheeks. 'It was I who killed Grandpa.' Goku looked into the distance and knew that somewhere out there was Kaio-sama, and with his training they would hopefully be able to get strong enough to defeat the Saiyajin. Goku wiped away his tears and thought; 'I cannot undo what has been done, but if I would die in this battle, then I will apologize to Grandpa when I meet him in Heaven. But I won't give up. I will fight the Saiyajin with everything that I've got. That's a promise.' With those thoughts in mind, he walked back towards the place where he left his older brother. Intent on getting some well deserved sleep.

OoOoOoO

It had now been over two and a half months since they had left the mortal world and started their journey and Goku's bag with Senzu was now almost completely empty, wich meant they would have to hurry up.

Raditz' scouter beeped as some numbers appeared on the green piece of plastic glass. As Raditz read the numbers, his lips formed into a smirk. "About time," he said. "Kakarotto, hurry up. It's not that far left," he called over his shoulder to his brother who was currently flying right behind him.

"Right," answered Goku, excited over the fact that their long journey would finally be over and at the prospect of getting stronger. He sped up until the two Saiyajin were racing through the air at top speed.

It didn't take long before they were able to catch a glimpse of the end of the snake. They stopped as they reached the tip of the tail.

"Ha ha, we did it," shouted a happily smiling Goku. But his bright smile quickly faded from his face. "But...there isn't anything here!" he screamed. He looked left and right but couldn't see anything besides the usual yellow clouds they had come to know as far as his eyes could see.

Goku was brought out of his panic by Raditz who tapped him on his shoulder and urged him to look up. Up there, a decent distance away from them, some kind of spherical object was howering in midair, recambling a small moon or planet.

"That round thing," started Goku as his hopes instantly returned, "That must be where Kaio-sama is!"

"Let's go then," replied Raditz as they both took off towards the small celestial body.

As they got closer to the mini-planet, they were able to get a better view of the place. The entire planet was covered in a blanket of neatly trimmed green grass and beautiful trees were growing here and there. A road made out of brick stretched across the planet, forming a visible ring around it and there was also a small spherical house, a well and even a garage. It was obvious that someone _had _to live here.

Just as the two brothers had gotten into a certain range of the planet, Goku started feeling funny. The next thing he knew was that he was falling, or rather pulled, towards the ground at high speed before he hit said ground...hard.

Goku tried to get himself up to his feet, but found that to be an extraordinary difficult accomplishment. His entire body felt like it was as heavy as lead and he had a hard time to even get to his knees, let alone standing fully erect.

Raditz landed much more gracefully than his younger brother and smirked amusedly at his brothers efforts. As soon as they had entered the planet's orbit he knew what was 'wrong'. Even though this planet was so small, it had a gravity that was at least ten times as powerful as Earth's own gravitation. Raditz' well trained body had instantly adjusted itself to the new gravitation, after all, Planet Vegeta had had a gravity that was even stronger than this. It was no surprise it was so hard for Goku since he had lived his entire life on Earth, growing accustomed to the planet's relatively weak gravitation.

"Hello there. Who might you be?" they heard a voice ask.

Goku and Raditz turned around and took in the appearance of the stranger. It was a fairly short and chubby man who had blue skin. He had a pair of round sunglasses that completely hid his eyes from view, the top of his head was covered in a hat were a pair of antennas sprouted from and he was clad in a set of red and black robes with the symbol of "Kaio" at the front. There was no doubt about it. The strange man that was now standing before them could be none other than the legendary martial-arts master Kaio-sama.

**A/N: **And that was chapter five. I'm sorry it took so long and I hope to have the next chapter out much faster than this one. In the next chapter of "Brothers" the training finally begins! Read and review!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Hi again. With over 4600 words this is the longest chapter this far. I had originally intended to include much more things in this chapter but considering you had to wait over a month for this one I decided to simply save them for the next one. Well, I really hope you'll like this chapter where the training starts but I warn you that I'll start using time skips in order to skip a lot of time where nothing really happens. With that said there's only one thing left to say: Read and Review!

**gokuspasm: **I won't reveal anything that important. You will simply have to wait until that part comes in order to read what happens.

**Writer-Person: **Thanks, that was one of the things I wanted to show a different side of. But I don't think we should be to hard on Mr Toriyama on that point. After all, Goku did have his hands full during that moment, with Vegeta going bananas on him and all.

**Millenium Ring and Winchester: **Raditz will learn the Kaio-Ken but he will NOT learn the Genkidama. I will state the reasons why later. But don't worry, I'll have Raditz learn something of his own. Something Goku won't be able to.

**Dark-Sephy:** Thanks. I wasn't completely satisfied with the Bardock and Sica part at first but I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway. Goku and Kaio did indeed tell jokes but as far as I know it was just puns. Since I only have the Swedish edition of the manga, and since most puns tend to get lost in translation, I simply decided to leave that part out.

**Steven 'shadow' leonheart:** Thanks. I won't reveal wich girl who's going to capture the heart of our favorite long haired Saiyajin until it actually happens, but I've got it all planned out. ;) As for the Super Saiyajin issue. As far as I'm concerned there are way too many Super Saiyajin as it is, but you'll just have to wait and see.

**chibigurl734: **Read the answer above.

**vegamarie: **Thanks for your review. I decided to have Raditz keep calling Goku Kakarotto partly because of the Saiyajin pride (wich has been toned down a bit after Raditz rather humbling experience with the Jajjimento technique), but mostly because their dearly departed mother gave Goku that name and Raditz was very attached to her.

**Emron The Dragon King: **I'm not quite sure I'm following your reasoning there. The reason why they were able to seal Kyuubi into Naruto was because he had just been born, and it has been explained that the Chakra Coils of an infant aren't fully developed, thus making him able to adapt his coils in order to hold in the Kyuubi's chakra.

**Warrior from beyond: **Thanks. Glad you liked the story.

**Trynia Merin: **Thank you very much.

**Heather .V. Snape: **Thank you. I'm doing my best.

**troubles: **Sorry, but school's been kinda rough these last couple of weeks. I write whenever I have the time or feel like it so you'll just have to get used to the fact that I can't update as fast as other authors. But hey, look at the bright side. Summer's here soon and that means that I'll have more time to write and that will hopefully speed up the updates a bit.

**Chapter 06**

**The Training Begins On Planet Kaio**

Their meeting with Kaio-sama could easily be described as one of the strangest experiences in Raditz' entire life. When he had first heard about the legendary martial arts master, he had pictured him as a serious, composed and wise warrior. A man who during his long life had managed to master every single aspect of the arts of combat to the extent that it had become as natural for him as breathing. A man that with a single punch would be able to cleave a mountain in half. A man that with a single breath would be able to dry the seas. A man that with a single word would be able to force entire armies to bow to their knees.

What he got instead was a short, fat and blue man who told the worst jokes he had ever heard in his entire life. Raditz and Goku couldn't help but just stand there, shock clearly written over their faces. Then Kaio had gotten angry at their silence, stating that he wouldn't teach anyone that didn't laugh at his funny jokes but Goku managed to convince him to accept them as his apprentices in the end. Raditz shrugged and pushed his scepticism to the side. He shouldn't really judge a book by its cover. After all, this guy's huge reputation had to be based on something and it wasn't like they could afford to go back now.

"So, you boys want me to teach martial arts, eh?" said the chubby man with a smirk as he took a battle stance. "Then, both of you, attack me and show me what you've got."

Raditz smirked and took a stance of his own. He hadn't used his scouter to get a full reading of their new sensei's power level, but he could clearly see that he was definetely no amateur. His stance couldn't be described as anything less than perfect. Raditz instantly knew that this was going to be fun.

"Er, excuse me," said Goku, getting the attention of the other two combatants. "I can hardly move here."

Kaio-sama looked slightly puzzled for a second before a thought hit him. "You wouldn't happen to be from Earth, would you?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," answered Goku.

"Well no wonder then," said Kaio as he eased his stance. "This is just a mini-planet, but its gravity is ten times as powerful as Earth's own gravity." He folded his hands behind his back and uttered a single word. "Jump."

"Huh?" was Goku's intelligent reply.

"Did I stutter? I said jump. Jump as high as you can."

Goku nodded and did as he was told and jumped as high as he could. Even though it was pretty high, it wasn't even close to half of what he could normally do back on Earth.

"Dammit! I can't get any higher," he called out in frustration.

Kaio, on the other hand, was pretty impressed by the young man's performance. To think that he could get so high even though he weighted ten times as much as he would usually do. Truly interesting. His attention shifted to the young man's long haired companion, a man wich he could clearly see was a Saiyajin. Last time he checked there were only a handful of them left. He really wanted to know why a Saiyajin would have come to his planet. But all in due time.

"Good. Now let's get started then, shall we? How long were you boys planning on staying here?" asked their new sensei.

"Well, until the Saiyajin arrives to attack Earth I guess. We're here in order to get strong enough to stop them," answered Goku.

"Oh my. You boys seem to have some pretty dangerous opponents," said the old god shocked. "Now, pardon me for asking," he said, now looking at Raditz, "why would you want to fight your own kin?"

The long haired Saiyajin's face darkened as he replied. "I have recently realized some things. Things about us Saiyajin. What we are and what we have done. I have realized what's truly important, and even though I hardly know anything about Earth, that's the place that my brother calls 'home', and I will help him protect his home with everything that I've got." Raditz then smirked and continued; "Besides, they where lousy pals anyway."

Kaio nodded as he couldn't feel any deception in the warrior that stood before him at all. He wanted to know more about all of this but decided to not push the subject any further. After all, everyone was entitled to their own privacy. "Very well then," he said, "then I guess I should see when they will arrive on Earth." With those words spoken, his face took on a look of deepest concentration as he closed his eyes behind his dark sun-glasses and his antennas bent forward.

As he opened his eyes, he did no longer see the pair of Saiyajin brothers that stood before him. Instead his eyes now pierced into the World of the Living and into the endless black void of space. The divine eyes of the Northern Kaio searched for his intended targets, passing by countless planets, stars and solar systems in the process, until he finally found them.

He locked his eyes on the pair of spherical spacecraft that were traveling through the blackness of space at an astonishing, their silvery surfaces reflecting the light of the stars as they passed them by, and he decided to take a closer look on ther respective occupants.

Both of them were currently in a state of deepest hyper-sleep. One of them was tall, bald and extremely muscular with a neatly trimmed mustache covering his upper lip. The other one was short, much thinner (without being scrawny) and had black hair shaped like a flame. Kaio instantly identified them as Saiyajin as soon as he saw their furry tails wrapped around their waists like a pair of belts. As he watched them he could practically fell the great power they were oozing.

Their unknown watcher's gaze left them and instead started to follow the course that they were heading. The blue god's vision suddenly shot through many lightyears of space, ignoring countless planets and solar systems, until he finally found the destination of the two intergalactic mercenaries. A little blue planet, named Earth by it's inhabitants.

Kaio closed his eyes, bending his antennas back into their normal position, and opened his eyes, now to see the two Saiyajin brothers again. Less than three seconds had actually passed during the time that it had taken him to finely calculate the time of wich it would take for the two hostile Saiyajin to arrive on Earth.

"The Saiyajin are indeed on their way and they will arrive on Earth in 258 days," said the Kaio of the North.

Raditz' respect for their new sensei rose yet another notch. It seemed as if this short, fat blue man was in possesion of far greater abilites than one would believe with a first glance.

"258 days," mumbled Goku quietly. "Will we really get strong enough during that time?"

Kaio gave the young man a calming smile. "Do not worry. 258 days will be more than enough. What you would achieve here during that time, you wouldn't even be close to with over a thousand years of hard training on Earth."

It seemed as if all of Goku's worries washed away at the short god's words and a bright smiled formed itself on the hero's face.

Kaio's face suddenly turned much more serious at what he was about to tell his new students. "But even if you fullfill your training, there's no guarantee that you two will actually defeat the Saiyajin. Both of them are extremely powerful. As a matter of fact, they are both even more powerful than myself."

Goku and Raditz looked shocked at hearing this revelation. Raditz not as much as his younger brother since he had already suspected as much when they first came to Kaio's planet. But still...

"Sad but true," said Kaio who was now smiling again. "Therefore you two must both become stronger than me or else you won't even stand a chance against these mighty foes. Now, are you two prepered to give it your all in order to become stronger?" he asked challengelly.

The two brothers remained silent for a short moment as different thoughts ran through their heads. Goku thought about his family; Gohan, Chichi and all of his frends. Not to mention all of Earth's inhabitants, all of who were completely unknowing of this impending threat. He had to protect them all.

Raditz thought about the vow he'd sworn as they had set out on their journey. He would fight to protect the world that his brother loved so much. Not to mention, if they were able to defeat his former comrades, it would be a step in the right direction for him to atone for what he had done in the past. Maybe, just maybe, he would actually be able to start a new life on that blue planet.

Any doubt that could have been seen in the brothers' black eyes just a moment ago, was now replaced by a fierce determination. As one they both nodded their heads. They would both give their all and even more than that.

Kaio-sama gave a nod himself, satisfied with their answer. It seemed as if the coming months would be an intersesting change compared to his usually dull life.

"Now, do you have anything you would like to know before we begin?" he asked.

At that precise moment, Radiz' and Goku's stomachs decided to make themselves heard as they both let out a loud growl. The brothers first looked at each other, then they turned their heads back to look at the now rather puzzled god before they in perfect unison asked; "Where's the food?"

OoOoOoO

After Goku and Raditz had completely emptyed Kaio-sama's pantry (much to the blue god's chagrin) they could finally begin their training.

The three of them were now currently standing standing in front of Kaio's spherical house, facing each other. Kaio stood with his arms neatly folded behind his back as he eyed his new students.

"Now, before we can begin with the actual training, there are some individual 'warmups' that you will have to do." He now turned to face Goku, focusing his attention on him as he continued. "Now Goku, I can clearly see that you are having much trouble moving around here because of this planet's great gravity."

"One question first," said Goku. "How come Raditz doesn't have any trouble moving around at all?"

"Well, it could be that I'm so much better than you Kakarotto," Raditz said smugly wich earned him a glare from Goku. "But it's also because I grew up on Planet Vegeta. Our homeworld had a gravity that was slightly stronger than even this one and that helped harden our bodies and that's one of the reasons why we were so strong."

"Precisely," said Kaio. "And I know just the right exercise for you." With that said he put his thumb and his indexfinger to his mouth and let out a loud whistle.

In the next second they could hear some kind of noise coming from inside Kaio's house and then they could hear glass break as something jumped right out of one of the windows and landed right in front of them.

It was a moderately sized tailed monkey, not at all unlike those wich could be found on Earth. It was currently balancing it's entire wheight on it's hands, looking at the two strangers curiously with it's dark eyes as it stood upside down.

"Bubbles! How many times have I told you to use the door?! The door!" Kaio sighed in exasperation and with a snap of his fingers the window was as good as new. "Now lads, let me introduce you to Bubbles. He will play an important role in this exercise Goku."

"Er, and what kind of exercise is it?" the hero asked.

"Simple. You chase Bubbles and when you've caught him you'll have adapted to the gravity enough for us to go to the next level in your training."

"Alright, I'll do that." He was confident he would be able to get this down rather quickly and then he would wipe that smug look from Raditz face.

"Oh, but there is something I have to warn you about," Kaio said with an amused snicker. "Bubbles can be pretty fast when he really want to be. Now Raditz, let's get inside. I want to talk about what I want you to do until Goku's done."

At that, the two of them pulled aside the curtain that served as a door and went inside.

Kaios house was very spartanly decorated with just some pieces of furniture here and there, a table, a chair and a futon. In the middle of the room there was a door in the floor wich led to another floor below where the pantry and the bathroom were located.

Kaio created a new chair out of thin air for Raditz and the two of them sat down at the table as Kaio poured some tea into a couple of cups wich were already on the table.

"I hope you don't mind me drinking," he said as he took a sip of his tea. "I was just about to have some when you two interrupted me." He took another sip before he put the cup back on the table. "That's a pretty interesting gadget you've got there," he said, refering to Raditz' scouter. "Would you mind if I took a closer look?"

"Er, no, go ahed," answered Raditz as he handed it over to Kaio.

The blue god took it and turned around the piece of equipment a couple of times in his hand as he inspected it curiously. "Hm, interesting... I take it that it's standard equipment in Freeza's army, is it not?"

"Yes, yes it is," answered Raditz, frowning at the mention of his old master. "It measures and searches the power-level of living organisms."

"Yes, I figured as much." He took a last look on the device before he completely crushed it in his hand.

"H-hey! What the hell did you do that for?!" Raditz yelled angrily as he quickly stood up.

"Oh, don't worry about that," said Kaio, waving him off calmly as he took another sip of his tea. "You won't be needing that old thing anymore. Now sit down please."

Raditz growled but did as he was told.

"You see, it would be for your own good if you simply stopped using that thing." At Raditz' confused look he decided to elaborate. "If you rely on a machine like that, it will be bound to dull both your senses and your reflexes. When you and your brother are done here I will have made sure that the use of such machines will be completely unnecessary for you to use in the future. You two will be able to have full control of your Ki as well as beeing able to _sense _the Ki of others."

"I already _have _control," replied Raditz.

Kaio sighed before continuing. "Yes, you can fly and you can focus your Ki into blasts, but that is _not_ full control. What I am talking about is the ability to supress your Ki, making you appear weaker than you truly are, only to release your full power in an instant. An act of surprise can often mean the difference between victory or defeat in the heat of battle. Imagine how useful such an ability would be when handling with opponents who relies on equipment such as these," he said as he made a gesture to what was left of the scrapped scouter.

Raditz nodded. He could definately see the reasoning in learning such an ability.

Kaio emptied his cup and then placed it back on the table. "Now, you'll have to excuse what I am about to do," he said apologeticly.

"Huh?"

Suddenly Kaio vanished only to reappear behind Raditz a microsecond later, grabbing his tail. Raditz fell to the floor, paralyzed by agony.

Kaio released him a second later and calmly walked back to his chair.

"What the hell was that for?!" Raditz bellowed as he managed to get up from the floor, placing a hand on each side of the small table and glaring daggers into Kaio's sunglass covered eyes.

"Well I said I was sorry, didn't I? Now please take your seat," he said, gesturing at the over turned chair.

Raditz continued to glare for a couple of seconds before he finally raised the chair again and sat down with a growl. He really started to get second thoughts about coming here.

"I wanted to test you and see if you still had the Achille's Heel of the Saiyajin."

"The heel of who?"

"Nevermind," Kaio said as he shook his head. A Saiyajin would definately not have heard any of Earth's ancient hero legends. "I wanted to see if your tail was still your weak point."

"You could have just asked," answered the Saiyajin grumpily.

"Yes, I could have," _but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun_ he mentally added. "Now, you Saiyajin might have been one of the most powerful races of warriors in the known Universe, but as soon as someone got a hold on your tail you would practically be as harmless as a kitten. But..." Kaio stopped as Raditz interrupted him by raising his hand, signaling him to hold it there.

"If you're insinuating that I should cut off my own tail then you can forget about the whole thing," he said with a voice that was calm but cold as ice.

"I wasn't going to. Now where was I...? Ah, yes! _But_ your tails can also be the source of your greatest strenghts. And with the proper training your tail would become quite an asset even without transforming into one of those roaring beasts. As far as I know, there were plenty of Saiyajin who went through training in order to remove their weak point, am I correct?"

Raditz nodded. It was indeed true that people had managed to overcome the weakness in the past. Vegeta and Nappa just to name a few. Bardock had said that he would teach him how to do it when Raditz would get back from his first mission ( but we all know how that worked out) and he never got the time for it during his time as Freeza's slave, constantly being sent to this or that planet all the time. He could honestly say that he was pretty excited at the thought of removing one of his primary weaknesses.

"Alright. What sort of training did you have in mind?"

Kaio smirked as his antennas bended forward again. After a second or so Raditz noticed that the blue god had done something with his tail. He unfolded it from around his waist in order to get a closer look. A slivery ring was now attached around the tip of his tail.

The long haired Saiyajin looked at Kaio, confusion clearly written over his face.

"Are you ready?," asked Kaio.

"Er, sure?" answered Raditz, not really knowing what he was supposed to be ready for. After Raditz had given his okay, Kaio snapped his fingers.

Not even a second later Raditz was yet again making acquaintances with Kaio's floor.

"The only way I could think of to remove your weakness was to strengthen your tail using rigorous training. I can at will increase or decrease the density of that ring's molecules, thus making it heavier," he explained in a teaching tone. "Any questions?"

"H-how...heavy is it now?" Raditz asked through gasps of pain.

"Oh, just 50 kilograms," ansvered the god. "I wouldn't want to wear you out right from the start now would I? But what doesn't kill you Saiyajin just makes you stronger, right?" The singlass wearing god let out a sigh before taking out a pocket watch from inside his robes, checking the time. "Well tea time's over. I better go out and take a look at how Goku's doing."

As if on que, they could clearly hear curses involving a certain monkey coming from outside the house.

And with that Kaio went out, leaving a floored Raditz to contemplate his less than dignified position.

OoOoOoO

About forty days had passed since they had arrived on Planet Kaio and Goku felt that today was the day when he would finally be able succed in catching that infernal monkey of whom he had chased tenaciously during this time. At their sensei's orders he hadn't removed his weighted clothing during the entire time that they had been there, the only exception being when washing himself, evrything for the sole purpose of adjusting his body to the extreme gravity of this small planet.

The orange clad hero of Earth took the stance of an Olympic runner before he yet again started his mission of capturing Bubbles. He was getting closer and closer to the speedy simian but it sarted to look as if Kaio's pet monkey would be able to yet again outrun Goku.

He wouldn't have any of that.

Goku started to focus the Ki in his legs and lunged for Bubbles, grabbing a hold of the monkey before falling to the ground, tumbling a couple of times before they finally stopped.

Goku rose to his feet, raising the dizzy primate triumphantly into the air.

It only took a couple of seconds before a huge grin was formed on his face and he started to jump around, unable to contain the excitement of finally having caught Bubbles.

"I've got him! I've finally got him! Yahoo!"

Raditz just smirked at his younger brother's antics. The long haired Saiyajin was currently sitting on the grass, lifting his tail in a faishon that would remind one of a body-builder lifting a dumbbell (only he did it with his tail and not his hand). The ring that was atached to his tail was now weighing well over 300 kilograms, Kaio having to increase the wheight regularly as soon as Raditz would grow accustomed to the old wheight, but the tall Saiyajin was acting as if he didn't even notice that it was there now. His tail had now become just as strong as any other part of his body.

It had been hell for him at first, truth to be told. Complete and utter hell. But he had forced himself through that hell, training day and night in order to rid himself of his weak point. And he had now succeded. His enemies could yank his tail all the wanted and he would still not feel a single thing. Instead he would now be able to pummel them into the ground with it.

Kaio could easily say that he was impressed by his two students. Goku had quickly adapted to the planet's gravity and Raditz had completely eliminated his Achiless-Heel. All in just 40 days and they still had about 200 left.

Perhaps they would be able to master _it._

Kaio-sama was regarded as a genious when it came to the Arts of Combat and he often developed completely new techniques, never before imagined by any other martial artist even in their wildest dreams. But despite all of this, there was still one technique wich he hadn't mastered yet. He had the theoretical part down into smallest detail and logically it should work, but he just couldn't seem to get pass the practical problems he seemed to have.

But maybe these two highly talented men would be able to master his unfinnished technique. A technique wich, if used correctly, would be able to grant it's user unimaginalble power.

Maybe they would be able to master the **Kaio-Ken**.

**A/N: **cool anouncer voice The real training starts and Kaio-sama challenges Goku and Raditz to master the astonishing Kaio-Ken. As the Saiyajin gets closer and closer to Earth he also wants Goku to learn the powerful Genkidama, the all powerfull energy sphere wich gets it's power from the very Ki of all living things. But what is this? Raditz cannot learn it? Fear not true believers. Kaio-sama has something entirely different in store for our favorite long haired Saiyajin warrior... Everything next time on Brothers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Welcome back true believers! I know it's been pretty long since last time, but here I am again with a whole new chapter of 'Brothers'. There will be a lot of time-skips in this chapter, wich I hope you won't find too annoying. I had a little problem trying to explain the Kaio-Ken, mostly because it was never really explained in the first place (at least not that I've heard), so I tried to come up with my own explenation. I hope it doesn't suck too much. Anyway, Read and Review!

**shima orelu:** Thanks.

**vegamarie:** Thanks, I'm really glad you seem to like my story. Regarding Raditz technique, it won't be anything original but I think it will suit him.

**Dark-Sephy:** Thanks, glad you enjoyed the chapter. Yes, that's pretty much the reason why I decided to not let Raditz learn the Genkidama. It just doesn't suit his character. I hope you'll be pleased with what Raditz learns instead.

**Heather. V. Snape:** Don't worry, I will.

**Millenium Ring and Winchester:** Thank you. You know, I never really understood how much time it can take to write a story until I started writing one of my own. Before I could be all like "Hey! Update the story dammit!" (not that I would ever actually write a review like that since that would only cause unnecesseray pressure on the author) So this has made me more patient when I'm waiting for my favorite stories to be updated.

**Trynia Merin:** Thank you. I hope you'll be pleased, but I'll be using a whole lot of timeskips from this point on.

**Chrosis:** Thanks, and don't worry about it. At least you took the time to write something.

**Dragon Alchemist:** Thank you. I intend to do just that.

**Chapter 07**

**New Abilities**

"Alright, listen up lads and listen well," said Kaio and immediately gained his students full attention. "Both of you have a very long and hard road ahed of you before you can even think about facing the Saiyajin. What you have done here until now will be nothing compared to what I have in store for you."

The three of them, Kaio, Goku and Raditz, were currently inside Kaio-sama's small house. The two Saiyajin brothers were sitting around their sensei's table while Kaio himself stood in the middle of the room and behind him there was a strange object covered in a dark cloth. Goku couldn't stop wondering what kind of mysterious secret the fabric hid from the world.

"Keh, we're not chickening out if that's what you're worried about. So go ahed teach, tell us what we should do next," said Raditz with his arms folded over his chest..

"Alright," continued Kaio, "as both of you are already aware of, the Saiyajin possess both incredible strength and power. Both of you will have to train relentlessly day and night if you want to match it, and even then there's no guarantee thet you will end up victorious in the coming battle. What you two need is a secret trump card able of changing the tide of battle in an instant."

"Do you mean like some kind of technique or something?" asked Goku with barely contained glee. This was something he had truly waited for since they first got to this place.

"Exactly," answered the blue god with a smile. "You see, one of my hobbies is to come up with new types of battle techniques, not that I would really need to use anyone of them here mind you, but it makes time pass. This particular one has kept me occupied for the last 500 years actually."

"500 years?!" exclaimed Goku and Raditz shocked in perfect unison.

"Yes. I've got the theoretical part down to the smallest little detail but, he he, for some reason I don't seem to be able to master it," he answered embarrasedly while scratching the back of his head.

"You trained for 500 years and wasn't able to master it?" Raditz deadpanned. "What makes you think we will be able to master it then? And wouldn't this be a waste of valuable time if we failed?" he asked with a sceptical eyebeow raised.

"Oh, I have faith in you. And even if you would turn out to be unable to master it, it still wouldn't have been for naught. Now, allow me to explain." With those words the ancient martial arts master pulled away the cloth from the unknown object behind him and revealed... a chalkboard.

"Now let the class begin," he said in a very teacher like tone of voice. "As you might already know, Ki is a form of energy, that is both physical and spiritual in nature, found in all living organisms of this universe. Plants, animals and humanoids, they all possess it but only a few of them actually have the skill or the capacity to manipulate it for any greater use. But those who _are _able to do it can use this amazing energy to do the most remarkable of things."

"Sadly, the use of Ki seems to be almost solely associated with battle instead of peace. This can be clearly seen as the greatest masters of Ki-manipulation are all some of the most fearsome warriors in this universe."

"What does all of this have to do with that technique of yours?" aked Raditz.

"I'll get to that in a moment," answered the blue god patiently. "As I was saying, Ki can be used to perform a gret number of astonishing things. It can make a person defy the very laws of gravity. It can be directed into massive blasts of explosive energy. And... it can also help increase a warrior's own physical strength, speed and agility."

This immediately caught the attention of the two brothers and they started to listen attentively to Kaio-sama's every word.

Kaio suddenly took a piece of chalk and scribbled down something on the board that roughly resembled a humanoid being. Art was clearly not his best subject.

"During my research I worked out a theory of what would happen if one would use his own Ki to force his own muscles to perform at a much higher level than they would usually be able to. It is of my belief that this would help the user to achieve powerlevels way above that of his or her usual capacity."

"Er, not to be rude or anything Kaio-sama," started Goku hesitantly. "But aren't a lot of people already able to do this. Being able to increase their strength by using Ki I mean."

Kaio just smiled and nodded. "It is true that I'm not the first in that regard. Many people throughout the galaxy have known how to increase their physical strength by using Ki for generations, your old sensei Muten Roshi to name one. When these people use their Ki to enhance their strength, they focus it to their muscle fibers and force them to expand. While this does increase their strength to entirely new levels, the larger muscle mass makes it impossible for them to move at such high speeds as they used to. They are simply too heavy," he said as he drew a much more muscular humanoid next to the first one on the chalk-board. "However, what I had in mind is entirely different."

"You see, when these people use Ki to enhance their strength," he started as he pointed at the 'piece of art' he had recently created, "they focus their Ki to their muscles and let it stay there for a period of time. Now, imagine this. What would happen if a person made his Ki flow through every single muscle of his entire body again and again at a very fast rate? The answer is that he would theoretically enter a state were his body would be able to perform at before unimaginable levels, making him stronger, faster and more powerful," he finished as he drew yet another character, this time it had pretty much the same physique as the first one but with an added aura of energy around it.

"So how do we do this?" asked Raditz. He was eager to master this so that he would be able to teach that arrogant Nappa a thing or two about pain.

"Oh no, you two are far from ready to even begin practicing this technique," answered Kaio quickly. "You see, this would be nothing less than a double edged sword. While it would most certainly grant it's user great power, it would also put an awful lot of stress and strain on the users musculature. If done incorrectly, the user would most certainly die. Both of you will have to train your bodies to a certain level before you can even try the Kaio-Ken. That is why I said that the training would benefit you even if you would prove unable to master it."

Goku and Raditz nodded to themselves, seeing the logic behind their sensei's reasoning. It would be foolish, to say the least, to run headfirst into a highly dangerous technique that you clearly wasn't ready for yet.

"Only one last question Kaio-sama," said Goku. "I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I could understand everything perfectly fine. Why did you bother getting a chalk-board?"

"Oh, that. I just wanted to show my students my artistic talents," stated the blue god as he puffed out his chest proudly. "Pretty impressive huh?"

Goku and Raditz was clearly not impressed.

OoOoOoO

The weeks passed by on the little planet as Kaio-sama put the two brothers through one excruciating training exercise after another in order to build up the duos' regular strength, speed and stamina. Their individual warmups, wich they had suffered through, were nothing compared to this. There were even times when they both felt like they wouldn't be able to continue any further, but their stubborness kept them going, both of them refusing to give up before the other.

Kaio-sama would also engage them in intense sparring sessions on a regular basis. In the beginning they had a really hard time to even compete with their much more experienced sensei, but as the time passed, both their teamwork and personal skills improwed to such a degree that Kaio could no longer take them on both at the same time. Their progress was nothing less than astonishing and it didn't take long before the two brothers' were ready to start their training with the deadly Kaio-Ken.

OoOoOoO

It had now gone nearly two months since they had begun their real training. Raditz was currently standing in the grassy area of Kaio's small planet, panting heavily. Every single muscle ached and protested in his powerful body, but nothing could wipe off the grin that was currently plastering his face. He had finally done it. He had finally mastered the Kaio-Ken.

The long haired Saiyajin warrior closed his eyes as he fell, back first, onto the sweet-smelling grass. It did not take long before his loud snores could be heard as he got his well deserved sleep.

Kaio smiled slightly as he observed the sleeping Saiyajin. The joking god turned his head and noted that his youngest student was in a similar condition as his older brother. He decided to let them be for now. After all, after how hard they had worked, they both deserved some rest. The pair of Saiyajin brothers had trained almost constantly since the training had started, continuing even after their bodies should have expired from exhaustion. Kaio didn't know if this was yet another trait from their Saiyajin heritage or if it was just sheer stubborness. It seemed as if these two would never cease to amaze the self proclaimed master of comedy. He never really had any doubts that they would complete his unfinnished technique (okay, he might have had some doubts lingering in the back of his head, but there's no reason to tell them that, now is there?) but to do it in such a short period of time was truly mindboggling.

Kaio had wondered how his unfinnished technique would have looked like in real life for quite some time now, and he was not dissapointed at all when he finally got to experience it with his own eyes, despite him not being able to perform it himself. It had exceeded even his greatest expectations. The speed and the power itself was amazing but it was the enormous amount of Ki the technique had generated that had made him gasp in astonishment.

Despite the immense power the two brothers now possessed, Kaio knew that it wouldn't be enough. They would need to gain a couple of more trump cards to hide up their sleeves if they wanted to have a chance at winning this. The old martial arts master went inside his house to ponder what he would teach his students next.

OoOoOoO

"...984...985...986...987..." grunted the long haired Saiyajin warrior Raditz as he continued to do his one armed push-ups, resting his entire weight on his right index-finger all the while having Bubbles sitting on his back, happily eating from a huge cluster of bananas.

It had now gone a couple of days since they had mastered the Kaio-Ken, using this time to recover from the strain the technique had caused on their muscles. But with them being Saiyajin, they both recovered much faster than Kaio would have previously thought. After their time of discomfort, Goku and Raditz also recieved a minor power-boost, something Goku was highly surprised to hear when their sensei pointed it out. This urged Raditz to go through some of the more basic things in Saiyajin physiology, something he thought that his brother would have known about by now after his less than calm life on Earth.

"...997...998...999...1000!" exclaimed Raditz as he finnished his push-ups and got to his feet, sending a startled simian rolling to the ground. Bubbles shook his hand in the tall Saiyajin's direction, less than pleased by having his resting place removed from him in such a rude and uncomfortable manner. But the monkey was completely ignored as Raditz was being to occupied with flexing his muscles, checking for any place that was still sore or ached. Not finding any he strolled over to his brother and their sensei with a grumpy Bubbles in tow.

Both of them were seated on a couple of chairs that were placed around a nice white table, currently right in the middle of Kaio's daily tea-time. Both Goku and Raditz knew by now that this was their teacher's favorite time of the day, enjoying a cup of delicious calming tea. Do anything to take it away from him and he would turn from a joking goofball into a sadistic slave-driver. Something Raditz had found out the hard way as the result of a careless ki-blast during training.

"Ah, Raditz. Finally recovered I see. Now sit down and let us discuss what the two of you should do next," said Kaio as he placed his empty tea cup on the table. The joking martial arts master gained a thoughtful look on his face as he twined one of his mustache-like facial appendages before continueing were he left off.

"Both of you have now mastered the first level of the Kaio-Ken. If you continue to train your bodies you would most likely be able to endure using the technique at the higher levels as well. But do NOT believe this will be enough for you to win," he said as he looked into the eyes of his two students. "If you rely to heavily on the Kaio-Ken there's a great chance that your bodies will crumble in the process, and then all hope will be lost for Earth."

"What will you have us do then?" asked Raditz as he leaned back into his chair. "You wouldn't happen to have any more useful techniques up your sleeve, do you?"

"As a matter of fact I do," answered Kaio with a smug smile. "During the time you took to recover, I pondered on what I should teach you next, and now I think I know what would suit you best. Goku?"

"Yes, Kaio-sama," answered the orange-clad hero of Earth.

"Follow Bubbles inside, he will take you to my secret study room. Wait for me there and I should be there with you shortly, I just need to speak to Raditz here about some things. But don't touch anything!"

Goku nodded and went to follow Bubbles. Kaio's pet monkey did not like to be ordered around one bit, but never the less did as he was told. Only after making a rude face at his master of course.

"Come Raditz," said the blue god as he raised himself from his chair. "Let's take a walk, shall we?"

They walked along the tiled road that circled the small planet on wich Kaio liked to drive his car, until they were on the opposite side of the planet. They stared out into space, watching how the golden clouds that seemed to cover up most of the Realm of the Dead move in the super natural wind, before Raditz broke the silence.

"What are we doing here sensei?" asked the curious Saiyajin as he looked down upon his much smaller teacher. "Aren't you going to teach Kakarotto and I the same thing?"

Kaio let out a heavy sigh. "No Raditz, I'm not. You see, what I plan to teach your brother I'm afraid you wouldn't be able to master even if you trained for thousands of years." As he saw that Raditz was about to object, Kaio silenced him by continuing to talk. "Don't take it personal. It doesn't have anything to do with your intelligence or your skills as a warrior. You see, what I plan to teach Goku is called the **Genkidama**. The 'Spirit Bomb'. It is a highly powerful technique wich I discovered in my youth. It works like this; the user sends out a pleading to all things that possess Ki in a certain vicinity around himself, to share their energy with him. If he is deemed worthy enough, his plea is answered in the way that he is being given a small percentage of the givers' Ki, wich he then can use to form a massive sphere of pure Ki that he can use to vanquish his foes."

Kaio turned himself around and looked up into the charcoal black eyes of Raditz. "To be deemed worthy to use the power of the Genkidama, one must be pure of heart. I am truly sorry to say that, even though you have truly improved yourself since your villainous days as one of that horrible demon Freeza's servants, you are still haunted by your foolish actions from those days."

"So that's the way it is, huh?" said Raditz with a sad smile on his face. No matter what he did, the long haired Saiyajin knew that he could never undo what he had done in the past and that his evil actions would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. All he could do was to make sure that his future actions would help him atone for what he had done. To show that he truly regretted everything he had done after he had given in to the hate and the violence in Freeza's army. "Well, since I can't learn that Genkidama thing, what should I do then?" he asked, trying to not sound too depressed.

"Well, I don't really think that I have any techniques that would actually suit you that well. I went through them all but couldn't seem to find one that would be worth spending any time on. But then it suddenly hit me. It is not one of my own techniques, and I think that you're already familiar with it as a matter of fact."

This caught Raditz curiousity. A technique that he already knew about? How could that be? "What is the techinique, Kaio-sama?"

The ancient martial arts master folded his arms behind his back and locked eyes with his tall student before he spoke.

"I think it's about time that you tamed that **Inner Beast** of yours."

OoOoOoO

Ever since the Saiyajin had gained the means of interstellar space traveling due to the outcome of the great civil war between them and the Tsufurujin, their people had been known as one of the most powerful warrior-races the galaxy had ever seen. But it wasn't only because of their mighty strength, their amazing ability of manipulating Ki, their inherent battle instincts or their ruthlessness that made people quiver in fear as they heard their name.

One of the main reasons why the Saiyajin race had become so feared throughout the galaxy was because of what would happen when these frightening warriors were exposed to the light of a full moon. Their bodies would change, transforming them into gigantic monstrous apes. Their already mighty power would increase tenfold and their minds reduce to a state of mindless berserker fury. This combination made a single Saiyajin warrior capable of decimating entire cities in mere minutes. No wonder that so many of the invaded planets' populations resorted to such desperate tactics like the removal of their own moons, even though such an action would definately leave disasterous side effects on their ecosystems, only to have a slightly higher chance of defeating their invaders.

This frightening form of almost unparalleled brute physical power was called "Oozaru" among the Saiyajin people, the name roughly translated as "moon born" in the ancient Saiyajin language. This form had a lot of obvious advantages, such as the enormous destructive power it possesed, but also many disadvantages as well. When a Saiyajin turned into an Oozaru, he or she was no longer in control of his or her actions. The unfathomable rage that came with the tranformation reduced their mind to that of a mindless beast, completely incapable of telling friend from foe in it's quest to destroy everything in sight.

As time passed, the Saiyajin understood that this couldn't go on much longer. Even though Planet Vegeta only experienced a full moon once every century, the extensive damage caused during one such event, in addition of an increase of failed missions were Oozaru had gone out of control and attacked warriors on those sides of wich they had been hired to support, had urged King Vegeta III, Prince Vegeta's great great grandfather, to force the strongest warriors to undergo years of hard training in order to gain control over their wilder sides that surfaced once they turned into Oozaru.

The result differed greatly from individual to individual, some only had minor control over their actions while others were as sharp as they were in their regular forms, even capable of speech. This process would later be called "taming one's Inner Beast".

And this was what Raditz was supposed to learn now.

The longhaired warrior was currently sitting down in a meditative position, trying to completely shut out the outside world in an attempt to reach inner peace and thus calm the dormant beast that resided within his mind.

It didn't really work that well.

Raditz had gone through more tiresome meditational exercises than he could care to count, and he still wasn't a single step closer to the intended goal. He'd had trouble with this sort of thing his entire life and it didn't seem like it would just magically change now. The fact that his younger brother seemed to progress so much better with his own training, already being able to summon the Ki from the small planet's residing organisms, didn't really help either and only seemed to fuel Raditz' frustration at his own inability.

He rose himself to his feet, kicked some grass and then went away to sulk (although he would have heatedly denied any such accusations).

Kaio chuckled slightly at the sight of his oldest student's impatientness. He strolled over to the tall Saiyajin, deciding to have a little chat with him.

"Any luck with your training so far?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," Raditz growled in response. "I've never been good at stuff like this. The harder I try the more pointless it seems. I know it's supposed to help but it seems as if I'm just completely unable to do it!"

"You can never rush the path to inner peace," the wise god said. "I can almost certainly assure you that it will come in due time, but I am afraid that time is something we cannot afford to lose. But don't let yourself down, even the strongest of Saiyajin warriors needed to train for several years before they could gain the slightest bit of control over their Oozaru form, that Vegeta guy not being any exception."

"But then why did we even bother to go through this if we don't even have the time?"

The ancient blue martial arts master let out a tired sigh. "I wanted to see if it could be done without me having to resort to _that_," he answered.

"That? What are you talking about?" Raditz asked curiously.

Kaio looked into his student's eyes, making sure to gain his fullest attention before continuing. "I could forcefully make you enter your own mindscape. There you should be able to face your Inner Beast. Subdue it by the power of your own will and you should be able to remain in control of your actions once you turned into an Oozaru. However, due to how realistic the experience will be, if you would happen to perish in this battle, your mind will be forever broken beyond repair. Therefore I will ask you this. Do you still wan't to go through with this, despite the huge risks?"

Raditz closed his eyes and considered his options. If he did succed with this dangerous ordeal, they would have an even higher chance of actually beating his former comrades. If he went through with this and failed, he would essentially end up as a vegetable. If he decided to not do this and then transformed in the upcoming battle, there was a great risk that he would unintentionally help destroy the world that he had sworn to help his brother protect. Raditz was no coward, he might have been called a fool plenty of times but never a coward, and as he saw it there was only one choice he could really make.

"I'll do it," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

"Very well then," sighed Kaio. "I guess there's no use stopping you. Sit down and close your eyes," he said as he pointed at the grass clad ground. Raditz did as he was told and sat down in a comfortable position and closed his eyes. The blue god raised his arm and placed his index finger and middle finger against the Saiyajin's forehead. "Now remember Raditz, this will be a battle of your will against your baser instincts, and your mind is the arena."

As soon as Raditz had heard his sensei speak those words, his contact with the world around him dissappeared.

OoOoOoO

As Raditz opened his eyes, he no longer saw the environment of wich he had come to know during his months on Kaio's planet. The skies wich had been completely covered in golden clouds were now replaced by a pitch black void and the soft grassy ground had been replaced by a large piece of rock with a flat surface for him to stand on, looking like it had been pulled right from the ground, floating in said void.

As the longhaired warrior took in his surroundings he noticed that, despite the blackness, he could see everything perfectly clear. But that didn't mean that there really were much to look at. Just more rocks like the one that he stood on, floating around aimlessly in the void.

"So this is supposed to be my mindscape huh? What a hell-hole," he deadpanned.

As soon as those words had passed his lips, a loud bang was heard throughout the void and the rocky platform trembled, almost making Raditz loose his footing. The longhaired Saiyajin quickly turned around, only to stare into a pair of blood red eyes belonging to a gigantic snarling Oozaru.

**A/N: **Well that was the seventh chapter and I hoped you enjoyed it. I also hope that none of you are too dissapointed regarding what I decided to let Raditz learn. I went with this mainly because I think it's cool and because I couldn't really come up with anything original that would be useful for him to learn. Next chapter will mark the end of the 'Training Arc' and after that it will finally be able for some ass kicking. I know that's something some of you have been waiting to read. Summer has begun wich means no school for me, wich also means more time for me to write, wich also means that you won't have to wait for so long until the next chapter comes out. See you all next time and remember to Read and Review.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Hi! Here I am again with yet another chapter. This marks the end of the training arc and next time our heroes will finally face the Saiyajin. As a side note, I recently found a site that had all the DBZ episodes. Subbed, uncut and with japanese audio! I've just recently started watching, but I already know that DBZ is an anime with much filler in it (and with filler often comes plotholes) so I will still use the manga as my number one source.

**Dark-Sephy: **I totally agree with you on that point. XD I wonder why Goku hasn't wished for his own personal chocolate factory yet. Glad you liked my explenation for the Kaio-Ken. I pretty much came up with it in the last minute and I feared it would sound a little far-fetched.

**Warrior from beyond: **Thank you. You'll see how it goes in this chapter.

**Writer-Person: **Thank you. I do my best to write as detailed as I can and I'm glad that it is appreciated. I think that there are way too many authors on this site who doesn't really put enough time or effort into their stories.

**troubles: **Thank you.

**Chrosis:** It seems like it, doesn't it?

**Lotr-Slasher-Queen19: **I will, so don't worry. )

**Dragon Alchemist: **He sure does.

**vegamarie: **Thank you. I think that I can safely reveal that the story will follow pretty closely with what happens in the original story, with a few twists here and there. But once everyone comes back from Namek, I will take the story in a completely different direction. )

**Chapter 08**

**To Tame His Inner Beast**

A layer of thick black fur covered the mighty creature's muscled body, its head crowned by an almost lion-like mane. A long flexible tail moved through the air like a whip, ready to strike at any moment. The great monster's blood red eyes, glowing with fierce hatred, rage and madness, stared down upon a longhaired warrior who was completely alone with this giant beast in the worlf of his inner mindscape were the only solid objects were chunks of rock that floated through a black void.

The Oozaru raised it's mighty head towards the heavens of this surreal realm and let out an ear-shattering roar. This was quickly followed by the beast driving one of it's powerful fists to strike Raditz right were he stood. The Saiyajin managed to avoid the punch in the last second, making the Oozaru completely shatter the ground were he had stood not even a moment ago. Not wanting to let the gargantuan monkey get time for another strike, Raditz quickly ran up the Oozaru's massive arm and delivered a powerful punch to it's face. He struck with such force that the loud impact of the blow could be heard echoing through the black void.

But the growling Oozaru didnt even blink.

Raditz skillfully evaded yet another swipe from the monstrous beast and flew away in order to gain some distance between himself and the creature. The mighty warrior pointed his arms towards his adversary, palms opened, and rapidly started to bombard it with Ki-blasts, covering the entire area in clouds of dust. He sent volley after volley after it, not wanting to give it any chance to get closer to him.

Suddenly, the monstrous ape emerged from the dust cloud, at speeds that should have been impossible considering it's great size, and delivered a swift blow wich sent the Saiyajin flying. Kaio hadn't joked when he said that this would be realistic. That hit had been even more painful than that time when Nappa had punched Raditz right in the face.

Right before Raditz was about to collide with another floating rock formation, he opened his eyes and roared "**Kaio-Ken!**" whereupon his entire body was immediately enveloped in a blazing aura of crimson Ki. He flew upwards at astonishing speed and landed on the floating piece of rock wich he had been only micro seconds away from colliding with, letting go of his technique in the process.

Panting haevily, he looked towards the Oozaru as it returned Raditz' look with a hateful glare from it's blood-red eyes. "_Dammit!_" thought Raditz heatedly. "_If this keeps up I won't last for long. I've got to figure out a plan to defeat that freak or everything will have been for nothing. It doesn't even seem to get faced by my attacks. Maybe if I managed to distract it for a while, then I could... _"

Raditz trail of thought was abruptly ended as the Oozaru gave out yet another mighty roar as it beat it's giant fists against it's powerful chest before it finally lunged forward, jumping across an incredible distance and landed right infront of Raditz.

The longhaired warrior barely managed to avoid being stomped by one of the monster's giant feet. He zigzagged his way between massive arms and legs, ducked from a swipe from the ape's strong tail that probably would have been able to knock him cold, and then quickly flew away to formulate some sort of plan. The giant ape was quick to follow, not wanting to lose it's prey for even a second.

Suddenly, Raditz dived, seemingly aiming for one of the big floating rocks below, and the Oozaru was of course already following him down.

Raditz could feel how the wind blew in his long jet-black hair as he saw the piece of rock grow bigger and bigger the closer he got to it. The very second when Raditz was about to crash, he was yet again enveloped in crimson Ki and flew upwards, his trail visible as a slowly fading red line across the blackness of his mindscape, and reappeared some distance behind his pursuer who was still quickly descending. Raditz raised his arms in 90 degrees at his sides and started to focus a huge amount of Ki into his open hands, still using the Kaio-Ken wich allowed him to put in even more Ki than he normally would be able to. When he had gathered a sufficient amount of the energy, he thrusted his arms forward, one hand placed over the other, and fired.

The Oozaru didn't have any time to react and was hit right in it's back by a massive beam of golden energy, pushing it down below at an even greater speed than before. It did not take long before the giant ape crashed into the huge piece of floating rock with a loud bang, sending debris everywhere while covering the area in a big cloud of dust.

That last attack had taken almost everything Raditz had, but the longhaired Saiyajin couldn't stop now. Seeing an opportunity he didn't want to miss, he flew down to the fallen Oozaru and grabbed it's tail, intending to end this once and for all.

But as he squeezed the furry tail with all the strength that he could muster, it did not give the result that he had hoped for. Suddenly, Raditz could feel a giant hand grab a hold of his leg, right before he lost contact with the ground as the monstrous ape rose itself to it's full height. With a mighty roar the maned Oozaru started to swing the Saiyajin around like a ragdoll before brutally slamming him into the hard ground a couple of times before it finally letting go of him.

Raditz was laying sprawled out on his back, feeling as if every single bone in his entire body had been broken. His already torn armor was now broken beyond recognition and his body was covered in nasty bruises and open wounds, making him bleed heavily onto the ground.

Raditz coughed, tasting the irony taste of his own blood inside his mouth. His vision had become blurry but he could still see the the shape of the Oozaru towering above him, ready to deal out the final blow. He had hoped that this "Mind-Oozaru" still had the weakness wich he himself had once had. Raditz now understood that it had been naive to ever hope for such a thing.

"_So this is how it ends huh?_" thought Raditz with an ironic smirk. "_I came all this way only to litterally end up losing my mind in some damn dream. It seems like some things were just never meant to be. My only regret... is that I couldn't be of any use. For that I am truly sorry Kakarotto,_" with those thoughts, Raditz closed his eyes and waited for what he knew was about to come as he heard the movements of the giant ape.

"_Raditz, I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you will look after him when he comes back. No matter what happans, you two will always be brothers. Nothing in the entire universe can change that. If something would happen to me and your father, then I need you to take care of him. Can you please promise me that Raditz?_"

As the longhaired Saiyajin warrior remembered those words, his eyes shot wide open and saw the Oozaru's incoming fist. He lifted his arm, the very same arm wich had been so horribly broken just seconds ago, and caught the monster's powerful fist in his much smaller hand.

The Oozaru let out a low growl of startled surprise at having it's attack so easily blocked by the prey who had been as good as dead only a moment ago. This was however soon replaced by a loud howl of excruciating pain as the giant ape's arm was completely burnt off at the elbow by a massive Ki-blast, leaving behind only a smoking stump.

"Like hell I'm about to forget about that promise a second time!" bellowed Raditz as he rose himself to his feet, his bones healing, his torn muscles reattaching themselves and his bleeding wounds closing, all in mere seconds. Once the revived Saiyajin warrior stood at his full height, he stared his monstrous opponent dead in the eye with such an intensity that the Oozaru actually took a step backwards.

"_Now remember Raditz, this will be a battle of your will against your baser instincts, and your mind is the arena._"

As Raditz remembered the words that Kaio had told him, he realised what he had done wrong in this battle until now. He had tried to overpower the monster with his fists, like he would have done with any other opponent in the real world. But here, in a world created by his mind, such things like pure physical power meant nothing. Here it was the meassure of his own will that determined his power. When he first got here and saw what he had to face, his will had been weakend, knowing deep down that he would never be able to defeat such a monster with his normal power. But once he truly realized what would happen if he lost, he knew that he could not allow himself to not win this crucial battle. His brother counted on him and he would not let him down.

"Yo, you oversized rug," Raditz called out to the giant adversary who Raditz no longer feared. "Let's rumble," he finished with an evil smirk before suddenly vanishing, only to instantly reappear infront of his opponent. The longhaired Saiyajin drew back his fist in order to deal out a powerful uppercut, wich connected with the chin of the now one armed Oozaru and sent the giant creature flying.

But Raditz wasn't going to let it be for even an instant and started to pummel it for all he was worth, dealing out punches and kicks that made the sounds of breaking bones echo throughout the area. Raditz grabbed onto one of the Oozaru's legs and started to spin round and round, making both of their forms completely blurry for one to see.

Raditz let go of the furry limb and saw how the massive form of his opponent flew through the air at impossible speed, hitting headfirst into a floating rock, only to pass it through with an impact that sent small pieces of rock in all directions and then collapse on the next floating rock.

Raditz landed gracefully next to the fallen giant who now growled pitifully at him. "Now what am I going to do about you?" he asked in mocked annoyance. The Saiyajin had an idea, but he didn't know if it would really work. He closed his eyes in concentration, imagining the set of shackles that he had worn when he woke up at Kami's palace, only a lot bigger this time. As he opened his eyes he could faintly see the outline of them, but after another attempt they finally fell to the ground with a heavy metallic clang.

It didn't take long for Raditz to attach them onto the now pretty much immobile Oozaru. Once he was finished he squated down in front of the defeated beast's face, looking into it's red eyes that stared back at him.

"Now listen to me and listen well. From now on, whenever I take on thet form of yours, **I **will be the one in charge," Raditz said while pointing at himself with his thumb. "If there's still trouble then I'll come back here and kick your ass again. Is that clear?"

As soon as those words had been said, the Oozaru completely vanished, not leaving behind a single trace. Startled, Raditz looked around and noticed that the rest of the mindscape started to dissapear as well, leaving behind a blinding white light. Suddenly he started to feel what he had felt that time when he had gotten here in the first place. He slowly closed his eyes, embracing the feeling of falling asleep and waking up at the same time.

OoOoOoO

As Raditz opened his eyes again, he was greeted by the sight of Kaio's ceiling. He had apparantly been removed from the grassy outdoors of Kaio's planet and been placed on one of his simple, but very comfortable, futons. But why and how had he gotten there? It wasn't exactly like that much time had passed since he had entered his own mind in order to face his Inner Beast. He didn't get any more time thinking about this mystery, as he was interrupted when three familiar faces entered his field of vision, all looking down at him with different expressions on their faces.

Kaio smiled smugly while nodding knowingly, as if he knew all along that Raditz would be able to get himself out of this mess, with his mind intact, all along. Goku let out a sigh of relief before giving his older brother a bright smile that showed all of his white teeth. Bubbles was eating a banana and looked as if he wouldn't care if the newly awakened Saiyajin spontaneously caught on fire.

"You had us quite worried there Raditz," chuckled Kaio. "Goku here even threatened to, and I quote, 'bust my teeth out' if I didn't wake you up," he said as he pointed at Goku who was currently scratching the back of his head while having a very sheepish smile on his face. "But I managed to calm him down long enough for me to explain that such a thing was impossible in your current condition. We decided to take you in here and we have watched over you ever since."

"Eh, thanks, I guess. But was that really necessary," asked Raditz. "It's not like I was ot for that long."

"What do you mean Raditz?" asked Goku confused. "You have been unconcious for over three days."

"What?!" Raditz blurted out loudly as he quickly rose himself to a sitting position. This unfortunately meant that Bubbles, who was standing right behind him, was knocked right through the roof as his chin recieved a rather powerful hit by Raditz head. "That can't be right. I'm sure that I couldn't have been gone for more than half an hour, if even that"

"Ah, but you see Raditz," started Kaio as he went into 'lecture-mode', "when you enter your own mind you will find out that time passes differently there. It also passes differently from time to time, often depending on what it is you do when you are there. Like this time for instance. As you tamed your Inner Beast, your body took it's time to adapt to the mental changes you went through. If that explenation is good enough then I guess I should go see if Bubbles is okay. I sure hope he didn't fall down into Hell. That ruffian Dabura is really not someone you'd want to cross and I would have one _hell _of a hard time trying to get Bubbles out of his domain." Laughing loudly at his own joke, the blue god went out of the house, closing the door after himself, leaving the two brothers alone in his spherical house.

It was all silent in the room for a moment until Goku broke it. "Why did you do it Raditz?" he asked with his back turned to his brother in a way that made it impossible for the long haired Saiyajin to see his face.

Raditz' face took on a quizzical expression at his brother's question, not understanding what Goku meant. "What do you mean Kakarotto? Why did I do what?"

"Kaio-sama told me what you tried to do," replied the Earth-raised Saiyajin. His voice was hoarse and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, trembling slightly. "He told me what you risked when went into your mind. You could have died or worse! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!" Goku quickly turned around, locking his eyes with Raditz'. His facial expression was angry, but his eyes were shiny with tears that threatened to be shed at any moment. The orange-clad warror took a deep calming breath before continuing, now in a much more gentle tone. "During these months that we've spent together, I feel like I've really gotten to know you Raditz. I know that we had a pretty rough start, but everything worked out pretty well in the end, right? I really don't want to lose my brother now that I just got him."

Raditz wasn't sure how to react on that. He had never been comfortable dealing with his feelings or emotions, and his long servitude under Freeza was sure as hell not going to help any. If he ever had a problem he solved it with his fists. End of story. That did not mean that he didn't know how his little brother was feeling right now. It was actually the complete opposite. He knew exactly how his Earth-raised brother felt, or how he would have felt if he really had fallen in his inner battle. Because he had been forced to go through the same thing. He might have partly supressed those memories during his time as one of Freeza's hired murderers, but now, after Jajjimento, everything was chrystal clear. He clearly remembered the horrible pain that he had felt once he was told that Planet Vegeta had been destroyed. It was not only because he would never be able to see his friends or family again. A large part of that pain had come from the fact that he had never been able to say goodbye to any of them. He had thought that he would be able to see them again right after he got home from his first mission, but once he had understood that there no longer was any home to return to, that he would never see his loved ones ever again, he had felt more pain than ever before in his young life.

Raditz let out a heavy sigh and looked to his side as he tried to come up with something to say, wanting to choose his words carefully. "Kakarotto... You know what kind of person I was when you first met me. I have done things so horrible that they would make you sick to your stomach." Raditz saw that Goku was about to interrupt him, but as he rose his hand he told his brother to let him finish. "I know that you have already forgiven me, you have said so countless of times. But I haven't forgiven myself yet, for allowing myself to sink as low as I did. After you accepted me, I swore to myself that I would do anything to help protect your home and family. I did what I did because it would grant me the power necessary to do that." The long haired warrior turned to face his brother again, a sad smile on his face. "I also want to show that son of your's that his uncle isn't someone that he should be afraid of anymore."

Goku smiled at that. "Don't worry about that. I'm sure that Gohan will come around eventually. Just... don't do anything like that again. At least not without telling me first, okay?"

"Hey, it takes more than an oversized carpet to bring me down," smirked Raditz. "Besides, from what you've told me, I'm not the only one doing rash things. Didn't you drink a magical water that would either kill you or make you stronger when you went to face that evil demon king Piccolo?"

That lightened up the mood and it did not take long before laughter could be heard coming from the house.

OoOoOoO

The harsh training continued on Planet Kaio. By each passing day the Saiyajin got closer and closer to Earth and the two brothers became stronger and stronger in order to face them. They only had one chance and they refused to give it up for anything in the world. The odds were clearly against them but they would give everything that they had in order to stop these mighty invaders.

It was now the day before the fateful day were the fate of the Earth would be decided. Both Goku and Raditz had now finally completed their training. Having strengthened both mind and body they were now as ready as they could be to face the Saiyajin.

"Goku. Raditz. You have now completed your training," said the blue martial artist. "I have greatly enjoyed having both of you as my students and I want you to know that I am very proud of you."

"It has been an honour to have you as our sensei Kaio-sama. Thank you for everything," answered Goku politely as he bowed for the great martial artist, showing his appreciation. He elbowed Raditz in the side to make his older brother mimic his actions. Being around Chichi for so long had taught the hero a thing or two about manners.

The god just chuckled at the brothers' antics. "Now remember what I have told you. Your opponents are immensely evil and powerful. You cannot allow yourselves to make even the smallest mistake or drop your guard for even a second."

"Don't worry Kaio-sama," said Raditz with his arms folded over his chest. "As long as we fight together we should be able to beat them."

"Yes, your chances of succes are indeed higher now that you ar two against two, but don't get too overconfident in your abilities. Now, what do you say about getting some new clothes?" asked Kaio as he pointed at what the duo was currently wearing. The two of them looked down at themselves, examining the condition their clothes were in. Goku's orange gi was hanging in tatters over his body, practically destroyed after months of intense training. Raditz' battle armor wasn't in any better chape. Both of the shoulder-pads, as well as the leg-guards, had been destroyed a long time ago and the rest of the armor looked as if it was barely holding together. The only things that actually were completely unharmed were the red bands that covered the brothers' biceps.

"See this as as a parting gift," he said before bending his antenna forward in a by now familiar fashion. The old, torn, clothing were now magically replaced by two sets of new ones. The two brothers were now dressed in identical garbs. Orange gi with navy blue undershirts, belts, wrist-guards and boots. The only difference between them was that Goku had Muten Rochi's turtle sign over the left side of his chest while Raditz had Kaio-sama's sign both on the back and on the chest. They still kept the arm-bands but now they had been cleaned from all the dirt that they had gotten during training.

"Wow! They feel so light," exclaimed Goku happily.

"They're not just lighter," answered Kaio proudly. "They are made from a fabulously strong fabric that will repel minor attacks."

"...Do they have to be orange?" mumbled Raditz with a twitching eye-brow.

"The time of your confrontation grows near," continued Kaio, paying no attention whatsoever to Raditz. "The Saiyajin will arrive on on Earth tommorow." As soon as those words passed the blue god's lips it instantly became completely silent.

"OH NO!! I didn't include the time it would take for you to get back along the Snake Way!" he screamed.

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Goku and Raditz in perfect unison. How could they forget something as important as that.

"Gah! You idiot! I take back everything nice I've ever said about you!" bellowed Raditz. "It took us two months to get here the first time. How the hell are we supposed to do that trip in a day?!"

"Shut up! Even I can make mistakes sometimes. Now is not the time to point fingers but rather to get going. You simply have to make the same journey in less than two days. Now go and save Earth! Go! Go! GO!" called the blue god as he pointed in the direction of Snake Way.

The two Saiyajin brother's didn't need to be told twice. They jumped down onto the giant serpent road, focused the Ki in their bodies and took off at top speed.

It did not take long before Kaio's students were so far away that he could no longer see them with his regular vision. The ancient martial artist let out a sigh and smiled as his pet monkey sat down at his side, picking it's nose.

"Those two Bubbles, they sure are something else," he said. "So much alike and yet so different. Goku's heart is pure and as clear as crystal. Raditz is ready to do anything to atone for his past mistakes and to keep his promise to his brother. Both of them possesses unlimited power and potential. If they manage to survive this there's no way of telling how strong they will become."

OoOoOoO

**A/N: **I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'll start with the next one as soon as I can. If you want a snek peak on what's going to appear in the next chapter, I have only one thing to say to you... **"It's over 9000!!" **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Welcome back true believers! I here give you the longest chapter that I have written so far. Nearly 6000 words! I don't know if I can say anything else than that I hope that you will enjoy this chapter. Read and Review!

**The Angel that Fell:** Thank you very much. I'm very glad that you like my story.

**Chrosis: **Thanks. Search for "dbz 9000" and you should find it.

**vegamarie: **Thank you very much. You have no idea how happy it makes me that my work is appreciated. I really hope that I won't dissapoint you then.

**Dark-Sephy: **Thank you for your kind words. I know how you feel. But rest assured, I'm far from done yet. D

**Dragon Alchemist: **It became such a big joke because someone made a pretty funny video about it. It's on youtube and it shouldn't be that hard to find it. The Namek saga will definately be included but I'll tell you all what I think about the whole Super Saiyajin issue at a later date. ;)

**goldensunrocks:** Thank you. The battle will start in this chapter.

**troubles:** Thank you. I try to write at least 4000 words per chapter these days.

**Vegito567: **Thanks, I guess.

**Chapter 09**

**The Battle OF The Four Last Saiyajin**

They had been flying for nearly 24 hours, pushing their bodies to their limits in order to make it in time to save Earth from certain doom. The improvemet that Goku and Raditz had achieved during their time as Kaio-sama's students were nothing less than amazing. The journey wich had taken them over two months was now almost completed in the span of one day.

As they got closer and closer to the end of Snake Way, Goku got more and more trouble with ignoring this certain thought that had been nagging in the back of his head ever since they left Kaio's planet. "Hey, Raditz," he said hesitantly without turning to face his brother. "How do you feel about all of this? I mean, we're about to fight your friends right?"

"Keh, don't you worry about me Kakarotto," answered the longhaired Saiyajin. "Those guys are people that I would never consider as friends. As three of the last surviving Saiyajin we _had_ to stick together and that made us comrades. But we were never friends. Vegeta and Nappa were of the elite, the aristocracy, while I was just the son of two third-class soldiers. Neither of those two would have even cared if I died," he said with a snarl as he remembered the last thing that Vegeta had said to him nearly a year ago.

Goku frowned at that. It wasn't that he didn't trust Raditz, far from it. After spending a whole year with his older brother, the greatest hero of Earth felt that he could trust Raditz with his very life. He had also never intended to reopen any old wounds that his brother might have, he only wanted to know how he felt about all of this, but he never got the time to apologize.

As Raditz looked forward, his eyes widened as he started to see something familiar on the horizon. "Kakarotto! I think I can see the head of the serpent! We're almost there!" he shouted to his younger brother.

After passing the snake's head it did not take long for the two of them to reach the large palace-looking building were thay had first appeared when they had first come to the Realm of the Dead. They marched right into the office of Enma Daio, startling a great number of souls that were waiting in line for their verdict in the process.

"Goku! Raditz!"

At hearing their names being called, the two brothers turned around and saw Kami. It seemed like the wrinkled god of Earth had come here right on time to transport the two of them back to the world of the living. They both grabbed a hold of him and instantly returned to his floating palace on Earth.

"The Saiyajin have already arrived," he told them. "You two are our last hope of ridding this world from the threat that they pose. Please, you have to hurry!" The awsome power that the two hostile Saiyajin possesed had been more frightening than the elderly god had ever imagined. Kami had with a sinking heart observed the entire battle from his palace, seeing Yamucha, Chaozu and Tenshinhan, his students and three of Earth's most powerful warriors, fall at the hands of these ruthless invaders had made him feel older than he'd had for a very long time.

"Don't worry Kami-sama," said Goku reassuringly. "The training with Kaio-sama has made us really strong." And with that the two orange clad Saiyajin jumped from the palace, letting the force of gravity guide them down towards the ground. As Goku felt the wind flow through his spiky hair he could only think about one thing. "_Gohan. Everyone. Please hold on a little longer! We're coming!_"

OoOoOoO

Inside the spherical house located atop the mighty Karin Tower, a certain feline martial arts master paced his way back and forth anxiously. Karin might not possess the divine vision of Kami-sama, but he was very adept at sensing Ki, making him know exactly how this battle was going.

"Oh dear, oh dear," mumbled the white cat to himself. "If only I'd had the time to grow more Senzu, then maybe those poor boys would have still been alive." He looked in the direction where he could sense were the different Ki-signatures were coming from. The two largest were of course the Saiyajin, and of the six warriors that had entered the battle to face them only three remained. Piccolo, Kuririn and Son Goku's son, Son Gohan. All three of them were fighting bravely, but Karin knew that if no miracle happened soon then they would all be killed.

That was when he suddenly felt it! Two incredible energy signatures were coming at an amazing speed from above. From Kami-sama's palace! This could mean only one thing...!

The chubby cat hurried to one of his tables before returning to the balcony, searching through the sky with his eyes for the young man that had given him back his hope. "There they are!" he yelled when he finally spotted them falling from the sky. "Goku!" he shouted, gaining the attention of his former student. "Here, take these! They are the last Senzu I have!" he shouted as he threw the magical beans at the two orange clad Saiyajin.

"Thank you Karin-sama!" Goku shouted back as he caught the valuable beans in his hands. He placed one of them behind his shirt, thinking that it would probably come in handy later, and broke the other one in half. He ate one half of the bean, feeling how the energy that he had used traveling over Snake Way return to him, and tossed the other half to his brother who happily ate it.

"Kintoun!" called the Earth-raised Saiyajin and not even five sconds later, the trusted golden cloud appeared by it's master's side. Goku looked over at the horizon as he stood ontop of the holy cloud, his regular brilliant smile replaced by a much more serious expression.

"Kakarotto, I can sense several strong energy sources in that direction," said Raditz who floated next to his brother, pointing in the direction of wich Goku was already looking.

The youngest of the two gave a nod at that and then they took off, heading straight for where the battle was being fought. In a desperate struggle against time, the two brothers' flew as fast as they possibly could through the air, adamant to get there in time in order to save Goku's son and friends. But as the they got closer to the battle field, Goku couldn't shake this feeling of dread off from him. Something was terribly wrong. "_I can sense several powerful Ki-signatures. But there should be more of them! Dammit, has some of them already died?_" he thought as he sped up his pace, making Raditz do the same.

As they passed over yet another forest, something changed and both of them could immediately feel it.

"One of the Ki-sources is getting weaker," gasped Goku in horror. "But that means...!"

"Yes," answered Raditz, a grim look on his face. "Someone is dying."

OoOoOoO

Son Gohan roared to the skies as tears flowed down his cheeks, his very soul aching because of the immense grief that clawed at his very being.

The five year old boy had lived a very sheltered life during the first four years of his young life. He could honestly say that he'd been completely happy with the life he had. Studying with his mother and learning all kinds of things about the world that they lived in that he could have never imagined. Exploring the woods with his father and come home to a lovely home made meal in the evening. But all of that had changed the previous year when he and his father had went away from their home in the mountains to see some of his old friends on Kame Island. He didn't think that he'd ever been as scared as he had been when his uncle had taken him hostage, locking him inside his spherical space craft and making him unable to do anything but cry after his father. But he had come and saved him in the end, as he knew deep down he would. The last thing he remebered before falling asleep was him crying out in his father's protective arms.

But when Gohan woke up, his father was nowhere in sight. The only other person present that he could see had been a tall green skinned, grim looking man wearing a white cloak that towered over him. He had told Gohan exactly what had happened, what would happen in a year's time and what he wanted him to do now.

Young Gohan had been left to fend for himself in the harsh wilderness for six whole months. The philosophy of the first part of Piccolo's training regimen was harsh but simple. If Gohan didn't survive, then that meant that he simply wasn't worth training in the first place.

But he did survive. And after spending half a year alone in the wilderness, raising himself to the top of the food-chain, he had finally become something the self proclaimed demon king could call "student material". After that, it was training from early morning to late at night for the young boy. Piccolo taught him everything he needed to know about combat. Attacks, defense, tactics, Ki, all of that were litterally beaten into the child until he was so worn out that he could barely stand. But despite the harsh training, Gohan slowly started to warm up to this so called demon. Maybe his innocence made him see something in his sensei that other people did not. Whatever the cause was, Gohan felt that he could trust "Piccolo-san".

And then the fateful day had finally arrived. Earth's greatest warriors versus the terrible might of the Saiyajin. The longhaired Yamucha had been the first to fall, killed by the vicious Saibamen that the Saiyajin had summoned for a game of their own sick amusement. But after Kuririn killed the bio-warriors, enraged by his friend's death, the gigantic Saiyajin Nappa had decided that it was time for him to enter the battle. The very earth trembled as the frightening warrior let loose his terrifying power at Earth's protectors. Chaozu, in a valiant attempt to save his friends, sacrificed his own life in the hopes of taking the Saiyajin with him in death. But it had all been for nothing and Nappa barely even seemed affected by Chaozu's noble suicide attack.

The three eyed warrior Tenshinhan, struck by grief after the death of his best friend, no longer cared about his own life and put every single ounce of Ki that he had left into a final Kikoho, ending his own life but sadly did little more than derstroy the Saiyajin's armor.

After that, the three remaining warriors did the best they could against their powerful opponent. In a moment of anger, Gohan showed what he was truly capable of and actually managed to hurt the giant Saiyajin, however insignificant it was. Nappa, who had been taken by surprise, was overtaken by rage and gathered a huge amount of Ki into his left hand before firing it at the young boy. Just as Gohan thought that everything was over for him, someone had jumped in front of him in the last second, taking the full force of the blast in his stead. As the blinding light subsided, the young boy looked up in shock to see the heavily scorched back of Piccolo. Gohan listened to his teacher's last words and could do nothing more than watch in horror as his life ended.

Suddenly, Gohan's grief was replaced by a burning rage. He stared into the eyes of his mentor's murderer, hate clearly written all over the boy's face. Vegeta blinked as his scouter beeped, the gadget showing how the child's battle power rose dramatically by each passing second before finally stopping at 2 800. The young half-saiyajin raised his arms over his head, gathering as much Ki as his small body could allow, and with a roar of **"Masenko!" **he fired it all in a single blast at his hated enemy.

Nappa snarled as he watched the incoming attack and with a battle cry he punched it with all his strength, forcing it to fly in another direction and explode in a massive fireball once it made contact with the ground.

"Heh, not bad at all kid," said the bald Saiyajin as he clutched his trembling left hand. "That one even numbed my hand a little," he continued with an evil grin.

"His battle power is decreasing," stated Vegeta with a smirk as he read the numbers that his scouter was showing him. "He has used all of his energy."

It was true. That last attack had taken everything that Gohan had left. His Ki and anger spent, the young boy sank panting to his knees, completely exhausted. "_I'm sorry Piccolo-san,_" he thought. "_I couldn't avenge you and now I'm too exhausted to fight anymore._"

The evil Saiyajin walked leisurely towards the defenseless Gohan, taking his time with each step to let the boy get time to agonize over his soon to come death. "I'll crush you!" laughed Nappa as he raised his foot over the boy. "I bet that coward Kakarotto will get pretty surprised once he finds the rests of you."

Kuririn, who lay on the ground a distance away, couldn't do anything but close his eyes. He wanted to save the boy but his body had taken so much damage that he couldn't even move a muscle anymore. Gohan himself had closed his eyes as well, gritting his teeth and waited for the Saiyajin to take his young life, to crush his body like one would do with a mere cockroach.

He was very surprised when nothing happened.

Nappa was just as surprised as Gohan, if not even more so. In one moment the annoying kid had been kneeling on the ground, but instead of feeling the familiar sensation of bones being crushed under his sole, his foot conected with empty ground with the kid nowhere in sight. But it had been the powerful kick that hit him righ in the gut and sent him flying that had truly stunned the muscular Saiyajin.

It took a second, but Gohan now understood that he had been scooped into the arms of someone that had just saved him from certain death. As he hesitantly opened his eyes, he caught a glimpse of a set of clothes that he knew only all too well. Happiness instantly filled the boy's heart and he quickly raised his head to see the face of the man that he had longed to see again for a year's time. But it wasn't who he thought it was. Instead of him seeing his father, he came face to face with the man who had haunted his nightmares during his lonely nights in the wilderness.

"Hey, kid. Why the long faces? You've just been rescued," said his longhaired uncle with a smile that was probably intended to be friendly and comforting, but it didn't seem to help get the shocked look from the boy's face.

"What are you doing here?" Gohan asked after a few seconds of tense silence. The young boy wasn't sure what he was supposed to believe right now. The same uncle who had kidnapped and threatened to kill him only a year ago had now saved his life. And why did he have his dad's clothes on him?

The long haired Saiyajin let out a sigh. "That's a long story," he said. "It all started a year ago when your dad and I..." He instantly became silent when he turned around and saw his brother's expression. Goku's face that would always be filled with happiness and joy, had now become a mask of cold anger as he watched the two invading Saiyajin.

"My, my. This sure is a surprise," came the sardonic voice of Vegeta. "We have been waiting for you Kakarotto, but who would have ever thought that you would actually let Raditz live?" That was a great mystery to the Saiyajin prince. He had been sure that if there were any traces of Saiyajin left in the traitor Kakarotto, then he would have killed his older brother as soon as he got what he wanted from him. Instead he had spared him and now it would appear as if Raditz had switched sides. Nothing made any sense to the prince anymore.

Goku walked passed his son and brother, going towards the lifeless body of Piccolo lying on the ground in front of them. The self proclaimed demon king's purple gi was in tatters and his green skin was visibly scorched. The Earth raised Saiyajin bent down, trying to find a pulse that he deep down knew wouldn't be there.

"Piccolo-san died protecting me," sobbed Gohan in Raditz' arms.

Goke surveyed the battle field. The surrounding area had suffered greatly from the brutal battle that had taken place. There were craters everywhere, rocks had been smashed to bits and Ki-blasts had burned almost all of the vegetation in sight. Raditz face gained a concerned frown as he watched his brother spot the bodies of two of his other friends. One of them, a three eyed man, was lying on the ground with one of his arms cut of and another one had been burned beyond recognition.

"They killed Chaouzu as well," came the muffled voice of Kuririn.

"Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Chaouzu, Piccolo... and Kami-sama. They killed them all," mumbled Goku to himself as he clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white. "Raditz, let's go," he said as the two of them started to walk towards the fallen, but still alive, warrior monk. "I'm really sorry we came so late," he said as he squatted down in front of his best friend. "Here, eat this," he continued and offered him half of the last Senzu and gave the other half to his son. The two of them instantly felt how their wounds healed and how their strength returned to their bodies, making them now able to stand on their own feet.

"Wow, that sure feels good," said the short bald man with a happy sigh.

"I can feel how strong you two have become. I guess you must have trained really hard Gohan?" asked Goku with a proud smile directed to his son.

"Yes. With Piccolo-san," answered the purple clad boy. "But there was nothing I could do. Those two are simply too powerful," he finished with a sad frown.

"And with Piccolo dead we can no longer use the Dragonballs," sighed Kuririn disheartened. When Piccolo died, Kami died as well because of the unique bond that the two shared. And without Kami, the very source of the dragon Shenlong's amazing magical powers, the Dragonballs had turned into ordinary stones and would remain so forever.

"Dad, what is he doing here?" asked Gohan hesitantly, pointing at Raditz. It wasn't easy for the boy to get over his first impressions of his uncle, despite the fact that he had just saved his life a couple of minutes ago.

Goku kneeled down in order to get on eye-level with his son, giving him one of those smiles that he had missed while placing a hand on his shoulder. "Gohan, you trust your dad, right?" he asked and Gohan immediately nodded in return. "Then trust me on this," he continued. "Raditz isn't a bad guy anymore, and he's really sorry for all those bad things that he did. I know that it might be hard for you, but I want you to trust him. Could you do that for me?"

Gohan nodded hesitantly. His dad had never lied to him before and he didn't see any reason to why he would start now. So if he said that he was okay then he probably was. But still... Alright. He would give his uncle a second chance. At least for his dad's sake.

Goku gave a nod back and rose himself to his full height before continuing. "We'll take care of these guys. Hurry and get yourselves to safety," he said to Gohan and Kuririn.

The warrior monk was just about to object, but he held his tounge as he saw the expression Goku's face had gained as he looked at the two evil Saiyajin. In all the years that Kuririn had known his friend, he had never seen him this angry. His body practically radiated with such incredible power that he instantly realized that he and Gohan would only get in the way if they tried to fight alongside of them. Kuririn took a hold of Gohan's shoulder and urged him wordlessly to follow him and find somewhere safe where they could watch the battle from afar, something that the boy reluctantly obeyed.

Nappa was NOT happy right now. He and his partner Vegeta had come to this backwater planet in the hopes of gaining immortality. They had thought that Kakarotto would know what was best for him and just hand over those "Dragonballs", only to find out that the damn coward wasn't even on the planet to begin with! Instead they had been challenged by a bunch of wannabe warriors that wanted to save their planet from certain destruction. Laughable! At least it gave him an opportunity to finally have some fun after such a long time. None of the pipsqueaks really put up much of a fight, and the Namekian refused to tell them anything about those Dragonballs that was obviously of his creation, so they simply decided to travel to the guy's homeplanet after they'd made this planet ready for Freeza. But no mather how many times he struck them they just wouldn't stay down! And just when he'd been about to crush Kakarotto's kid, someone appeared right out of nowhere and sent him flying with a kick to his stomach. Once the big Saiyajin raised himself off the ground and got his bearings back, he saw that both Kakarotto _and _Raditz had arrived. Oh, how he was going to enjoy this...!

"Alright, get in line. Who want's to die first?" asked the giant Saiyajin with an evil grin. If Raditz had decided to side with his brother, then he deserved the same fate as him.

"Raditz, let me take care of him," said Goku without taking his eyes from the monster responsible of murdering his friends.

Raditz nodded. He knew exactly how his little brother was feeling right now and wanted to give him a chance to avenge the deaths of his friends. "Alright Kakarotto, you should be strong enough to handle him on your own. But remember, we have to take care of Vegeta together," said the long haired Saiyajin.

Goku nodded and started to walk forward, a look of silent rage adorning his face.

"I don't like that look on your face. Do you want me to kill you that badly?" asked Nappa as he laughed.

"I won't forgive you, bastard!" growled Goku as he took on a battle stance and started to let the Ki that he had suppressed surface, making the entire area tremble as the hero of Earth let loose the astonishing power that he had kept hidden until now.

Vegeta's eyes widened in shock, his scouter was beeping like mad as Goku's power level raised itself far above what should have even been possible for a guy like him. "_...7000...8000! Impossible!_" thought the Saiyajin prince.

Raditz just smirked with his arms folded over his chest as he watched the expressions on his former comrades' faces. It was finally time to show them just how strong they actually had become thanks to Kaio-sama's training.

"V-Vegeta! What does the scouter say about his power level?" Nappa asked his partner.

The smaller Saiyajin removed the scouter from it's place and crushed it to bits in his hand as he growled; "It's over 9000!"

"What?! 9000?! No way! That has to be some kind of mistake! A malfunction!" replied Nappa in shock. How could such a thing be possible? How could a third-class brat that hadn't even been raised on Planet Vegeta be so strong? It didn't make any sense to the elite-classed warrior.

"Don't worry," said Goku calmly. "I won't use the Kaio-Ken on a guy like you."

"Shut up! You're no match for Nappa-sama!" roared the enraged Saiyajin as he lunged for his new opponent. But his eyes widened in startled surprise when his fist, wich he had aimed to connect with Goku's face, only met empty air. He didn't even get time to blink as he felt a powerful blow strike him in the back of his head and sent him falling to the ground.

Raditz smirked as he watched Nappa get back to his feet, fuming red with rage. Oh how he had longed for this moment, to finally see the arrogant Saiyajin get knocked down a few notches by someone that he had thought to be inferiour to him.

Nappa started to charge his own Ki until his entire body was crackling with the energy. At astonishing speed the giant Saiyajin attacked and with a battle cry started to send a barrage of punches and kicks at Goku. Each and every one of them were powerful enough to shatter mountains and they all struck as fast as lightning, but the Earth raised Saiyajin managed to avoid them all completely without any effort. To Goku the attacks actually seemed to fly at a snail's pace.

Goku continued to thoroughly humiliate his opponent, using his superiour speed to dissappear only to instantly reappear to deal out a new attack. For every punch or kick that Goku dodged or blocked, he returned with tvice as much force. The orange clad hero didn't only fight for himself, every attack that connected with his larger opponent was for his fallen friends. His resolve strengthened by the deaths of those he couldn't save.

It continued like this for a while until Nappa was sent flying into one of the nearby mountains. As he emerged, bruised and bloody, it looked like he was ready to explode and started to roar curses at his enemy. "Damn you! I'm a famous elite warrior! I'm not going to let a lowly third-class scum like you get me! Unforgivable! I'll butcher you!"

Vegeta had gotten increasingly more irritated since this battle had started and now he just couldn't take it any longer. "You fool!" he bellowed. "Get your head together! You can't take him down, no matter how much you try, Nappa! Calm down and keep your head cool!" Didn't that idiot see that running at Kakarotto in blind rage would never work? If he wanted to take him down then he would have to keep himself calm and collected, or else he would just hand the victory right over to Kakarotto. That damn fool was just as overconfident as ever!

However, Vegeta's little "pep talk" seemed to have worked and Nappa's attacks became visibly more fluent, planned and organized. Nappa charged his Ki, raised his arm with his index finger and middle finger pointing upwards, performing the move that Raditz had seen completely obliterate countless cities in the past. This was however not intended to kill Goku, just to distract him. As soon as the orange clad Saiyajin emerged from the massive explosion that the technique had created, Nappa immediately attacked. The two powerful warriors started to rapidly exchange punches and kicks in fast succession in their now arial battle.

With a last punch the two fighters backed away a little, gaining some distance between each other. "You're a lot better now," stated Goku with a small smirk.

"Better now?" snarled Nappa. "I'll beat you up so bad you won't be able to mouth off anymore! This is the end!" he finished with an evil grin. The giant Saiyajin started to charge his Ki yet again, opened his mouth and fired a massive blast of energy right at his opponent.

Goku's eyes widened in surprise but the trained warrior started to act nearly immediately. He placed his hands together at his side before quickly thrusting them forward and with a shout of "**Kamehame-Ha!!**" fired a brilliantly blue beam of Ki that connected with Nappa's attack, making the sound of a deafening explosion echo throughout the area.

Once the dust had cleared, Nappa could be seen shocked completely speechless. The elite Saiyajin had fired the most powerful attack that he had, and yet his opponent had managed to not only survive it, but also deflect it without even gaining a single scratch. In all of his years of fighting, Nappa had never been so thoroughly outclassed by someone that he considered to be beneath him.

"Get down here Nappa!" shouted Vegeta angrily up at his partner. "You cannot defeat him so just let me finish him off!" The Saiyajin prince was greatly displeased over Nappa's inability to dispose of his opponent, and it was clearly written all over his face.

The big Saiyajin looked down at Vegeta hesitantly. He did not want to admit himself to be defeated by such a lowly fighter, but even though he might be called simple-minded by some he was smart enough to know that Vegeta was not someone that you'd want to cross. "Damn it! It angers me that I'll have to leave a guy like you to Vegeta!" he snarled. The giant warrior then chuckled as his lips formed into an evil grin. "Vegeta will only let you live for a second once he comes after you. He's a genious warrior and the last living heir to the grand royal bloodline of Planet Vegeta. Since he ordered it, I'll have to let Vegeta have you," he continued as he started to descend towards the ground. "But I'm not going to back down either!" he finished as he turned around and started to fly fast towards Gohan and Kuririn that had tried to hide and watch the battle from a safe location.

The two smaller warriors' eyes widened in terror as they watched the powerful Saiyajin come towards them at great speed, opening his mouth in order to once again perform the attack that he had failed to kill Goku with.

"_Oh no! I won't make it in time!_" thought Goku horrified as he tried his best to get to his son and best friend in time.

"**Kaio-Ken!!"**

Everything suddenly turned deathly quiet. Not a single sound was made except for the wind that whined throughout the valley. Gohan and Kuririn could only stare in shock as Goku's older brother had appeared in front of them and lodged his left arm, up to the elbow, into the gut of the bigger Saiyajin.

The silence was broken as Nappa coughed, painting the ground red with his own blood as his eyes were widened in complete and utter shock. He hadn't even seen the long haired Saiyajin when he attacked. Only a glimpse of something red somewhere right outside of his field of vision that had lasted for less than a fraction of a second, and then felt blinding pain as a fist pierced his body. There had been such force behind the blow that he doubted that his discarded armor would have given him any better protection.

"R-Raditz? ...H-How...?" asked Nappa as more and more blood started to flow out from his nasty wound and mouth. Was this really the same third-classed brat he had known for the past 20 years? How could any of these two have gotten so incredibly strong in such a short amount of time?

"That's my nephew you just tried to kill," answered Raditz without looking at Nappa, a cold expression on his face. "You should have listened to Vegeta when he told you to stand down." With those words said, he pulled his arm out with a sickening sound and threw the defeated Saiyajin at Vegeta's feet.

"He needs medical attention," said Goku to Vegeta. He had by now landed and was very thankful that his brother had managed to prevent the Saiyajin from fulfilling his goal.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Raditz as he turned to face the smaller fighters, while removing the blood from his arm with a small concentration of Ki.

The two nodded hesitantly. How the hell did he manage to get there so fast? All they had managed to see had been a red flash before the big Saiyajin was brought to a stop.

"What was that thing?" asked Kuririn amazed. "Was it some kind of new technique?"

"Yes. It's called the Kaio-Ken," answered Goku at his friend's question. "We learnt it from Kaio-sama in the Realm of the Dead. It's a technique that doubles the user's speed and strength to new levels for a short amount of time."

"Amazing! Then those guys won't stand a chance against you," said the former monk in awe. "But why didn't you use it right from the beginning then?" he asked with a quizzical eyebrow raised.

"Because it is too dangerous. Kaio-Ken is a double edged sword and if you make even a single mistake, the technique might even kill you," explained Raditz.

In the meantime, as Nappa lay on the ground, using all the strength he had left he managed to raise his arm as he looked up at his prince. "Vegeta, help me," pleaded the defeated Saiyajin as he coughed up more blood. Vegeta eyed his partner's hand with his usual scowl, but never the less he grabbed it with his own. "Sorry, Vegeta," smiled Nappa, relieved to have been forgiven for his disobidiance.

Suddenly, the Saiyajin prince's lips formed into an evil smirk and he tossed his helpless companion into the air with all his strength, to the great shock of all the present onlookers. "I don't need a Saiyajin that can't move," he stated coldly, completely ignoring the desperate pleas that Nappa uttered. The cold hearted Saiyajin then started to gather his Ki and fired a blast that completely disintigrated the betrayed warrior, sending massive shockwaves throughout the area.

Once the dust subsided, Vegeta turned and faced the last remaining obstacles that was left before he could finally purge this planet from all life.

"Now, the real hell begins," stated Raditz grimly as a single bead of sweat ran down his cheek.

OoOoOoO

**A/N: **Well, that was the chapter and I hope you enjoyed it. As a side note I'd like to point out that Goku's power level actually was 8000 in the original japanese version, but was changed for som reason in the dub. But the reason why I sticked with 9000 was definately not because of that, but partly because of the online-joke and for the fact that Goku and Raditz trained with Kaio slightly longer in this timeline, making them a little stronger. I hope that cleared out some confusion. The battle with Vegeta finally starts in the next chapter. Will our heroes have what it takes to defeat the prince of all Saiyajin?


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Welcome back true believers!The tenth capter is here and now the real battle begins. Damn, writing fight scenes like these is tougher than I thought. I tried my best with not making them too repetative, have no idea if I succeded or not though. You will probably recognize some of it if you have read the manga or seen the anime. I saw the episode of Goku going all out against Vegeta about a week ago and man was that awesome! Probably one of my favorite scenes this far. Well enjoy the chapter, I hope you like it and remember to Read and Review!

**AnimeCowgirl: **Thank you very much.

**vegamarie: **Thank you, and I'm really happy that you still like this story. The Saiyajin and Namek sagas are my favorites as well and they will definately be included in this story. I agree on the fact that Vegeta is evil personified at this point in the story and I have something special in store for him, but that's all long into the future. ;)

**LordVegeta91: **Thank you for your reviews. Read on and you'll see how the battle developes. The sagas from the original that's going to be in the story is the Saiyajin and Namek sagas. But don't worry, I won't stop there. After those are done I will start working on original storylines that I've been planning for quite some time now so expect a lot of surprises in the future. )

**Vegito567: **What?! Nine thousand?! No way!

**Hybrid thing: **Sorry, I don't plan to write the Cell or Boo sagas. Even though there sure are some very entertaining stuff in those storylines, there are just too many things that I don't like about them that makes me completely uninterested in writing about Cell or Boo. But that doesn't mean that I'll stop writing once the Namek saga is over and done with. Oh, far from it. Instead I plan to write at least two completely new sagas, most likely in their own separate stories once this one is finished, with with new villains. I will also make sure to thoroughly explain just why the Cell and Boo sagas won't happen in this timeline in a, what I hope to be, believable way. And as for the GohanxVidel pairing. Aren't there already enough of those stories as it is? But who knows? I might have already decided or I might have not. ;)

**Dark-Sephy: **Thank you, the hardest thing to write in this chapter were probably the fight scenes and I really tried to not make them repetative, even though I fear that they still are. Oh, and if you have trouble finding the video then I could always send you a link on DA. I don't know how well FF support web links yet.

**Kinoha: **Thank you, and yes, even though it's silly and stupid it's still hilarious.

**Dragon Alchemist: **Go to Youtube and search for **dbz 9000 **and you should find the video.

**Luca3k9: **Thank you very much. I don't think one can't get any higher praise than that. )

**Troy-26: **Thank you. I started writing it about eight months ago, but there's still plenty to do before it's finished.

**Chapter 10**

**United Power**

Goku, Raditz, Gohan and Kuririn, the last warriors left to oppose the Saiyajin invasion, were all floating in the air, looking down at their last remaining enemy who stared right back at them coldly. They had all been shocked speechless at what they had just witnessed only a moment ago. Vegeta, the most powerful Saiyajin warrior alive, had just killed Nappa right in front of their eyes, his own loyal companion. The already mortally wounded warrior had begged for his life, but the smaller Saiyajin had taken his life without even a blink.

"What a monster," said Kuririn horrified, breaking the silence. "He just killed his own partner! I knew these guys were cold, but this is just...!"

Raditz frowned. The long haired warrior had never liked the larger Saiyajin, and he didn't think that he would lose any sleep with him dead. But the way it had ended for the so called elite warrior, it just felt wrong in a sense. He had only met the two first after their home planet had been destroyed, but Vegeta and Nappa had already known each other for quite some time before that. Before the destruction of Planet Vegeta, Nappa had been Vegeta's retainer and personal bodyguard, following wherever the young prince went. Say whatever you want about Nappa, about his brutality, his intelligence or his twisted sense of enjoyment, but if there was one thing that no one could ever doubt about the man then that thing was his unquestionable loyalty to the Royal Family. Raditz couldn't even begin to imagine how it must have felt for his former companion to have been so horribly betrayed by the very same person that he had sworn to protect with his own life.

"You two will immediately get yourselves to Muten Roshi-sama's house," said Goku seriously to Gohan and Kuririn. If they remained here then they would just get themselves killed. Vegeta was a guy so far out of their league that they wouldn't even survive two seconds against him in open combat.

"You're right," replied Kuririn. If there was one thing the warrior monk knew, then that was how to tell when he was severely outclassed. "Gohan, let's get out of here. Vegeta is too strong for us. We won't be of any help this time, and Goku and Raditz won't be able to fight at their full potential against him if they have to look out for us. We'll just be in the way if we stay here."

"Yes. Nappa was nothing compared to Vegeta," said Raditz. "Believe me, I have seen what this guy is capable of and you would not want to be on the recieving end of his wrath."

"Alright, I understand," said Gohan hesitantly. He didn't want to just run away, he wanted to stay and help, but the boy understood that it would probably be for the best if he let his father and uncle handle this on their own.

"Goku. Be careful with our friends' bodies," said the bald fighter. "When they come back to life their bodies will have to be undamaged."

Goku blinked in confusion. What did his friend mean by that? "Come back to life? Piccolo and Kami-sama are dead. The Dragonballs doesn't exist anymore. Our friends will be dead forever," he replied with a frown.

"I'll explain later after you've gotten rid of this guy," said Kuririn. The short man still had some hope left, however little it might be, but it wouldn't matter at all if Goku and Raditz didn't manage to defeat Vegeta. "Everything lies in your hands now. Good luck my friend and don't die."

Goku gave his friend a nod before ruffling his son's hair. "Gohan, when we get back we'll go fishing again, just like we used to," he said and was rewarded with a happy smile from his son. "Raditz, let's go," and with that the two brothers quickly descended towards the ground and landed in front of the already waiting Vegeta.

"Looks like you two know it won't do any good to run," chuckled Vegeta evily.

"We're going to change locations," replied Goku. The hero didn't know what his best friend had meant but he was still going to do as he had said.

"Do what you want," replied the Saiyajin prince with a smirk. "The same thing will happen. The only difference is that your graves will be somewhere else."

With those words said, the three Saiyajin took off, flying at astonishing speed under the quickly reddening sky. It would be night soon and this battle would decide if the world would even get the chance to experience the next sunrise. As the three warriors traveled through the air, Goku and Raditz surveyed the ground below, searching for an arena that would be best suited for this important battle. It was Goku who found the most ideal location for the battle. A completely barren wasteland, consisting of nothing but rocky mountains. But the best of all was that Goku hadn't been able to see any houses for several kilometers in any direction and it was practically impossible for any animal to live there, meaning that no innocent lives would be able to get caught in the cross fire. Goku gave a signal to his brother who nodded in return and the warriors landed.

"So this is where you choose your graves?" asked Vegeta mockingly as he looked down at Goku and Raditz from one of the cliffs. The Saiyajin prince had his arms loosely folded over his chest and a scornful smirk plastered over his face as he eyed his so called "opponents". Goku and Raditz on the other hand held their arms at their sides, staring back at their arrogant enemy with a look of complete defiance. If Vegeta thought that he would be able to intimidate these Saiyajin who now stood before him, then he was sorely mistaken. "You two should feel honored that the ultimate elite warrior is going to entertain himself with such lowly warriors like yourselves," he continued in his usual superiour tone that Raditz had come to loath so much. Vegeta had alvays made him feel so worthless in the past, constantly reminding him of his lowly status as a warrior. But those days were over!

"As soon as a Saiyajin child is born, it's potential is measured. Raditz, some of the third-classed children like yourself are allowed to stay on Planet Vegeta to train. To become little more than replaceable soldiers," continued Vegeta with a sneer that made Raditz grit his teeth in rage. "The trash without any real potential, like Kakarotto, are sent to planets with weak inhabitants and moons were they won't have to fight seriously. In other words, you two are nothing more than disposable castoffs."

Raditz was ready to attack Vegeta then and there, but his anger was stopped by surprise when he heard that his brother was actually chuckling. "Is that supposed to make me angry?" he asked with a small smirk. "I'm actually very grateful that I was allowed to come to this planet. If I hadn't been sent here then I would have never been able to meet all of my friends. I wouldn't have the family that I love so dearly. Besides, what's the fun in being really strong right from the beginning? With hard work, even castoffs like us may get better than any elite."

Raditz smiled inwardly at his brother's words. He was right, and he felt slightly foolish to have let Vegeta's talk get to him. With them being the last Saiyajin in the entire universe, things like Saiyajin ranks and classes didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter that he was born into to lower class instead of the ruling elite class. The longhaired warrior even realized that he by now was stronger than most Saiyajin elite warriors would have even dreamt to ever be. And it was all thanks to his brother. If it hadnt been for Goku, then he would probably never have gotten this powerful. If his brother had been sent to any other planet then they would probably both be purging planets for Freeza right now, instead of honorably defending one. If Goku hadn't been sent to Earth then he would never have been able to give his older brother the chance of getting a new life.

"What a funny joke," snorted Vegeta. "Then I will now show you two a wall no amount of hard work can ever take you past," finished the royal Saiyajin as he took a battle stance.

Goku and Raditz mimicked his action and got into their own individual stances. For several moments the warriors didn't do anything but stare at each other. No one moved a muscle and the only sound that could be heard was the wind that whined as it travelled it's way between the cliffs and blew through the jet black hair of the Saiyajin warriors. Suddenly, as if a startsignal that only the three of them were able to hear had been given, the three warriors sprung to action.

Goku and Raditz instantly separated, doing as they had trained with Kaio in order to utilize their teamwork to the fullest potential, and moved to attack their enemy from separate flanks. However, Vegeta effortlessly caught the fist that aimed for his face and blocked the kick that had just been about to connect with his ribs. The powerful Saiyajin smirked as he grabbed a hold of the two brothers and threw them away in different directions. Both of them immediately vaulted in midair before using the cliffs as leverage to bolt right back at Vegeta. He dodged a punch delivered by Goku and followed up by dealing out a kick that connected with the taller Saiyajin's chin, sending him flying. The Saiyajin prince's attention was then changed to the older one of the brothers as he could sense Raditz aproaching from behind him, intending to attack from his blindspot. Right before the longhaired warrior's kick was able to hit his intended target, Vegeta dissapeared from sight only to instantly reappear behind Raditz. The evil Saiyajin folded his hands together over his head and dealt out a blow that sent his former subordinate head first to the ground below.

Raditz managed to turn himself around before he hit the ground and flew right back at Vegeta. Through the corner of his eye he could see his little brother mimic his actions, and both of them let out a deafening battle cry as they both felt how their Saiyajin blood started to boil with their lust for battle. As one they started to deal out attacks in a rapid succession, kicks and punches that moved faster than a normal human eye could see and with enough power to completely shatter boulders.

Vegeta just continued to smirk as he kept on dodging and blocking their attacks effortlessly. "What's the matter?" he asked, laughing evily. "Do you mean to tell me that this is all you've got? Show me the power you used when you defeated Nappa!" With those words said, he delivered a roundhouse kick that both of them barely managed to dodge, forcing them to back away and gain some distance.

Vegeta was truly a terrifying opponent. Raditz and Goku was giving their all in this fight but were still severely outclassed by the Saiyajin prince, who was not even taking this fight seriously yet! Even though they were two against one, Vegeta continued to just bat them away like they were nothing.

Well...to say that they were giving their all might have been a lie. After all, thanks to a certain joking god, these two brothers had more than one ace hidden up their sleeves, and right now would be the time to bring forth one of them.

They locked eyes with each other, sharing a smirk and a nod before uttering the name of the technique that both of them had learned; Kaio-Ken. They started to let their Ki flow throughout their entire bodies over and over again at a rapid pace, making it's effects visible in the form of a blazing aura that completely enveloped their bodies.

Vegeta blinked as they attacked again, their crimson auras leaving behind a slowly fading red line in their wake as they took off after him at astonishing speed. No wonder Nappa had been immediately defeated after being subjected to this move he thought. Raditz stopped right in front of him and dealt out a barrage of punches that all made contact with Vegeta's chest, putting extra force behind the last blow and sent the royal Saiyajin flying right in the direction of his already waiting brother. Goku immediately kicked the incoming warrior away before rushing after him again with his older brother right behind him, making them look like a pair of crimson lightning bolts surging through the air.

Suddenly, Vegeta's eyes snapped open and he immediately changed his course of movement and flew right into Goku and Raditz. He delivered a swift kick to each of his two opponents, forcing them to release their hold of their strange techinque. "If this is all you can do then I have really overestimated you," he said. This power might have been more than enough to take care of Nappa, but he was a warrior on a completely different level than his now dead subordinate. While he did have a little more trouble with keeping up with the two orange clad Saiyajin, the difference between their power was still too great for them to overcome.

Despite the seriousness of their situation, Goku and Raditz couldn't help but enjoy themselves. Like all other Saiyajin they loved a good fight, and neither of them had felt as alive as they did right now in a very long time. But they both knew that they couldn't afford to lose here. Too much was at stake.

"You two seem to have reached the limit of what you can do," stated Vegeta with a smirk. "Now I'll show you something before you die. The overwhelming destructive power of the greatest Saiyajin warrior!" As he started to charge his Ki, his entire body began to crackle with energy. Dark stormclouds gathered and completely hid the sky from view, bombarding the ground with bolts of lightning. The very earth itself trembled as the prince of all Saiyajin let loose the full extent of his awesome power. With a roar he sent shockwaves in all directions, forcing Goku and Raditz to protect their faces with their arms.

But just as soon as the effects had started, they stopped, replaced by a complete and utter calm. Not a single cloud could be seen under the darkening sky anymore and the winds that had previously whined in the mountains had now been silenced. Raditz and Goku didn't get any time to dwell on this however as their attention was drawn back to Vegeta. His Ki had spiked to it's fullest and the strong killing intent that he emitted was so evident that it could almost be seen by the naked eye.

"This is the end," he stated with a smirk before his face turned into an emotionless mask of stone as he attacked. They didn't even have time to blink before he appeared right in front of them, forcing Goku back with a powerful headbutt and vanished for a split second only to instantly reappear beside the orange clad form of the Saiyajin and with a downward kick sent him to the ground. Raditz formed a Ki blast in his right hand and threw it at Vegeta, but just as he thought that it would actually hit the smaller Saiyajin, it simply passed through empty air. The longhaired Saiyajin's eyes widened as he felt how their enemy reappeared right behind him and he let out a grunt of pain as he felt how a foot connected with his ribs. He didn't even have the time to turn around before he felt Vegeta's elbow make contact with the top of his head, sending him down the same path of wich his brother had done.

Luckily, Raditz managed to regain control of his body before he hit the hard ground and landed atop one of the cliffs and noted that his brother had done the same. The speed that Vegeta had was amazing. Not even their highly trained senses seemed to be able to keep track of him. Both of them started to scan the air trying to locate him. He suddenly reappeared again however, and with a smirk threw two deadly energy blasts in their direction. They managed to escape just in time from being destroyed along with the mountain by using the Kaio-Ken at double power, flying up in the air twice as fast as they would normally be able to.

However, Vegeta had counted on this and with an evil smirk sent two more blasts of blazing Ki at them. Raditz managed to deflect the one aimed at him by producing a blast of his own, making it pass harmlessly by him in the last second, making it only manage to singe a couple of strands of his long hair. Goku on the other hand had tried to dodge the incoming attack, but he had moved a tad too slow and it managed to burn off the right part of his gi, showing his slightly reddened chest underneath.

"Good. I'm impressed that you managed to dodge that," said Vegeta amusedly.

The three warriors descended towards the ground and landed by a deep ravine, Goku and Raditz facing Vegeta who stood at the other side, smirking with his arms folded over his chest. "I've made it easy for you this far," stated the evil Saiyajin. "After all, it wouldn't be any fun if you died right away, now would it?"

"Damn it. I can't believe his power and speed," said Goku through gritted teeth as he tore off what was left of his destroyed shirt.

"Not even with a Kaio-Ken of double power could we keep up with him," replied Raditz, frustration clearly written all over his face. Despite their long and hard training, it seemed as if they still were no match for the prince of all Saiyajin.

"I guess there's no option left," said Goku with a small smile. "Even if it destroys my body, it's still better than dying. I'll use the Kaio-Ken with three times the normal power," declared Earth's greatest hero determinately.

Raditz' eyes widened instantly at his brother's words and turned around quickly to face him. "No Kakarotto! That's too dangerous! Remember what Kaio-sama said. We aren't ready for anything above double power yet. The risk of losing control is way to high," he said as he tried to talk his brother out of doing what he had planned. There had to be another way.

"Sorry Raditz, but that's the only thing we can do in this situation. He would never allow me to take the time needed to perform a Genki Dama, and even if he did he's way too fast for me to get a clean shot at him. Stand back and let me handle this," he said with a smile. "If something goes wrong then I'm counting on you to finish him off."

Raditz knew deep down that his brother was right about this. This was probably the only way that they could defeat Vegeta in this situation, but that didn't mean that he had to like it. "Trying to get all the fun for yourself, eh?" he replied, giving him a half-smile. "Alright then, but as soon as I see that things start to look bad then I'll come and back you up."

"What are you guys mumbling about?" asked Vegeta disdainfully before laughing evily. "Can you increase your battle-power even further or have you already exhausted all the weapons that you have? You really chose the wrong person to defy. I am number one among all Saiyajin warriors. No matter how much you have trained, it's still impossible for you to defeat me. The only thing you have done is prolong your lives a little," finished the Saiyajin prince with a smirk. Now, he was going to kill these two. He was going to enjoy their looks of horror before he took their lives. And after he'd purged this planet from all life, he would travel to the planet of Namek and finally gain the immortality that he oh so richly deserved. Then nothing would stand in his way of overthrowing Freeza and take over the role of ruler over the entire universe for all eternity!

Vegeta was brought back to reality when he noticed that something was going on at the other end of the ravine. Goku had his eyes closed in consentration as his muscles seemed to swell slightly, powerful gusts of wind had started to blow in all directions from where he stood and the very air seemed to crackle with invisible energy. Suddenly, the Earth raised Saiyajin's eyes snapped open and he looked up at the sky. **"Kaio-Ken times three!!"**

The change was immediate. As if a command had been given, the winds instantly grew in strength and Raditz actually had to struggle in order to keep himself on his feet since he was so close to the centre of the small storm. Goku screamed as the familiar aura of crimson Ki enveloped his body, shining so brightly that his older brother was forced to shield his eyes, the pain that he felt in his muscles only seemed to egg him further on as he forced his body to new levels of power.

Vegeta couldn't believe it. Kakarotto, the little brother of his weakest subordinate, who had lived his entire life on a planet like this was radiating so much pure power that he could actually feel it.

Goku's eyes seemed to glow with the Saiyajin lust for battle before he suddenly took off. Raditz barely managed to get away before the cliff that they just had been standing on were completely destroyed by the powerful recoil of his brother's attack. Vegeta didn't even have the time to blink before he felt how Goku's fist connected with his face in a mighty punch that sent him flying. He had barely even started to actually feel the pain before the blazing Saiyajin struck again, this time from below, sending him upwards into the air. The Saiyajin prince snarled as he managed to regain control over his body, looking down to see how his enemy was aproaching quickly towards him. He thrusted his arms downwards, palms open, intending to stop his opponent as soon as he got to him, but as soon as Goku was in reach, he took off yet again, flying faster than a rocket around the enraged Vegeta, only leaving behind a red line to testify of where he had been. The royal warrior roared in rage as he threw a bolt of Ki in his opponent's direction, only to be rewarded with a painful kick to his face that sent him headfirst into one of the cliffs, hundreds of meters away.

Vegeta roared in absolute rage as he let his Ki spike, completely obliterating the cliff that he had crashed into, sending shrapnel of small rocks in all directions. His face was twisted into a grimace of utter fury as he watched his incoming enemy. He moved to deliver a punch, only to have it dodged as Goku jumped right over him and kneed him in the back. This time however, Vegeta managed to somersault through the air and by using one of the rocks as leverage he was able to fly right back at his hated opponent. He was going to rip his still beating heart right from his writhing body was the thoughts that raced through Vegeta's head as he draw back his fist that now glowed with purple Ki before delivering a punch that probably would have cleaved a mountain in two. Goku just ducked, the Kaio-Ken enhancing his senses and reflexes to a level that he was able to easily see the strike coming, and punched Vegeta straight in the gut.

Vegeta clutched his stomach, gasping for breath as he stumbled back several steps. His eyes were widened and bloodshot as he stared in disbelief, coughing up a mixture of saliva and blood. "You rotten...!" he snarled as he gave Goku a murdering glare before he jumped back in order to create some distance between them.

To say that Raditz was amazed would have been a great understatement. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes then he would probably never have believed it. With the power that Goku had now, not only did he manage to match Vegeta's own power but he also seemed to outclass him! The long haired Saiyajin knew however that this was only temporarily and that his brother wouldn't be able to continue like this for very long. He could see in the way he moved that the Kaio-Ken of triple power was already starting to take it's toll at his body. Soon he would have to intervene or else his brother might accidentedly kill himself.

Goku gritted his teeth in pain as he felt another muscle snap. His entire body seemed to ache under the horrible strain that he put it through. He might have bitten off more than he could chew when he'd decided to do this, but despite the excruciating pain he still didn't want to give up. Vegeta was truly an impossibly tough opponent and he knew that if he wasted any time, then he might not make it before he took him down.

Vegeta on the other hand, was completely furious as he glared at his enemy. "_Impossible! Kakarotto can't possibly have a battle power greater than mine!_" he thought as he clenshed his fists so hard that they shook. "I won't let this happen!" he declared heatedly. "I am the strongest of the elite! There's no way that I can be defeated by third-classed scum like them! I am...! I am the prince of all Saiyajin! The greatest warrior in the universe!" he roared. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but it wasn't until he took a look at it that he completely lost whatever cool he might have had left. "Blood? I'm spilling my royal blood fighting trash like them?! Unforgivable! Absolutely unforgivable!" roared Vegeta to the heavens as his Ki exploded in an aura of malevolent purple energy before he quickly flew upwards. "I'm not interested in this lousy planet anymore!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs as he stared down at Goku and Raditz. "I'm going to turn it to dust, and you along with it! Take this if you can. Even if you survive, the planet will be smashed to pieces!" stated the Saiyajin prince before he made a half-turn and placed his hands at his side, starting to focus his Ki.

The two brothers' eyes widened in horror at what they just had heard. Raditz realized that Vegeta was going to do something that he rarely ever saw him use during all those years that they spent together. A massive beam of pure energy capable of nearly complete destruction. The Gyarikku-Ho. A technique that Vegeta had developed secretely in an attempt to be able to compete with the stronger of Freeza's warriors. Raditz knew that if they didn't do anything fast then this might very well be the end of the Earth.

Goku was not going to let the royal Saiyajin destroy his home and kill all of it's inhabitants. He was taking a huge risk here, but he didn't know what else to do, and once again entered the state of Kaio-Ken with triple power. As the crimson aura flared around his body, the Earth raised Saiyajin placed his hands together at his side and started to chant the name of the techinique that he had been taught by Muten Roshi in his childhood years. "**KA... ME...**"

The very ground started to shake as the two powerful warriors let loose their individual energies. Small pieces of rock floated into the air, defying the laws of gravity as the atmosphere crackled with the two Saiyajin's clashing Ki.

"**HA... ME...**"

The more fragile cliffs and mountains started to fall apart, unable to endure the unbearable tension any longer as they were litteraly pulled apart by the presence of these two conflicting powers that only kept on getting stronger and stronger.

"**HA!!!"**

"**GYARIKKU-HO!!!"**

In a blinding flash of light, the two Saiyajin warriors each fired a massive beam of Ki at one another. Halfway between them, the two blasts collided with a deafening bang that created a powerful shockwave that completely blew away what little that were left of the nearest cliffs and mountains. It was brilliant blue against glowing purple in a desperate struggle to gain dominance, both of the fighters poured everything they had into their respective attack, neither of them having a single thought of giving up. Both of them seemed to be equal in strength, but Vegeta's Gyarikku-Ho started to ever so slowly push back Son Goku's Kamehame-Ha.

The hero of Earth was just about to risk going into Kaio-Ken times four, knowing that it would most likely kill him, when suddenly someone appeared at his side. Goku nearly lost his concentration as his eyes widened in surprise at seeing his brother right next to him. The longhaired Saiyajin gave his brother a small smile before placing his hands right next to Goku's.

"**Kaio-Ken times three!**" bellowed Raditz, instantly gaining a flaring aura just like his younger brother. He let his Ki flow into the Kamehame-Ha, helping to increase it's already awesome power to completely new levels. Now, twice as strong as it had been before, the beam forced Vegeta's attack right back at him. The Saiyajin prince had a look of complete disbelief as he watched how the Kamehame-Ha easily tore right through his Gyarikku-Ho, right before the blue beam of the brothers' united Ki hit his own body and sent him into the stratosphere.

They watched how the Kamehame-Ha grew smaller the further away it went until they couldn't even see it anymore. Goku sank to one knee, having been completely spent as he had exhausted nearly all of his Ki during this dramatic duel. His entire body ached terribly because of the strain of having used such a high level Kaio-Ken for so long. Muscles had been torn in several places and he felt excruciating pain at even the slightest movement.

Raditz was also pretty worn out by now, but not nearly as much as his little brother. He, who had only used the self damaging power for a couple of seconds and still felt very sore, knew that there would have been a huge risk of his brother dying if he had forced his body to go into Kaio-Ken times four. He had no time to dwell on that however as the silence were broken.

"Son! You did it! You actually did it!" came the voice of none other than Yajirobe as he ran towards the two brothers. The fat swordsman had also trained under Kami alongside the rest of Goku's friends, but never actually went to fight the Saiyajin once he felt their awesome Ki as they arrived on Earth. Yajirobe wasn't exactly the most unselfish of Goku's many friends and without any false hope of defeating these monsters he reasoned that if he was going to die anyway, why rush things and thusly remained right where he was. However, as he was eating his last meals he couldn't silence his annoying conscience's nagging no matter hom much tasty meat he gobbled down. It wasn't until he felt the familiar Ki of Son Goku alongside an equally strong one that he decided to give a helping hand. However, once he made it to the battlefield and actually witnessed the sheer power that the Saiyajin had he'd decided to just hide and observe to see how things turned out. Now that everything seemed to be fine, Yajirobe thought it was okay to reveal himself.

"Yajirobe? Why are you here?" asked Goku, surprised to see the friend that he had met during the Demon King Piccolo incident at a place like this.

"Didn't you know? Well I guess you must've had your hands full if you didn't notice me," reasoned the swordsman with a grin as he folded his arms over his chest. "But I'm impressed that you two managed to blow up a guy that strong. And about that, who is the long haired guy anyway?" asked the chubby warrior as he pointed at Raditz, using one of his thumbs.

"Yajirobe, this is my older brother Raditz. Raditz this is Yajirobe," said Goku as he introduced the two warriors to each other who shared a nod of acknowledgment.

"Ah, your the guy who Son trained with at that Kaio guy's place huh? Well I can tell that it payed off. You really are something," he said as he delivered a playful punch to Goku's arm. It didn't have the desired effect however and Goku screamed in pain at the contact. Yajirobe took a step back in surprise. "What? What's wrong?" he asked.

"I strained my body using that technique," replied Goku as he forced his lips to form into a smile.

"Kakarotto, you used the Kaio-Ken for too long," said Raditz, concern evident in his voice. "Any longer and you might have killed yourself."

"It sure wasn't normal. But hey, you didn't hit the bucket and managed to defeat that guy, so no harm done right?" said Yajirobe with a shrug. "A couple of days of rest and you should be fine."

"It's not quite as simple as that," came the voice of Goku's longhaired brother as he looked up at the sky. "Vegeta isn't someone that would die this easily. Kakarotto wouldn't be suffering like this if he had. Kakarotto, your body is right about to fall apart from the strain right now and you're probably close to your limit. But don't worry, once he gets back I'll take care of him once and for all," stated Raditz with a smirk.

Yajirobe blinked a couple of times as the gears started to turn in his head. Once all of the information had sunken in, he figured there was only one smart thing to do in this situation. Get the hell out of here as fast as he possibly could. "Well, it was nice seeing you. Tell me how everything went. Bye!" he qickly blurted out before running away as fast as his legs allowed, quickly hiding behind a rocky formation again.

The two brothers shared a puzzled look before shrugging. Then, Goku and Raditz waited for the Saiyajin prince to return, but he didn't for some reason. They felt how his Ki flew around in the sky, as if he was searching for something, but neither of them had any idea of why he was doing that.

Suddenly, they felt how his Ki changed direction, coming straight for them. Raditz eased himself into a battle stance as Vegeta landed in front of them. It nearly seemed as if his uniform had taken most of the damage from their united attack. His right shoulder pad had been ripped off, there were no traces left of his crotch or leg guards and there were some visible holes in his blue jumpsuit. He also had a couple of bruises and cuts on his face and som blood ran from a broken lip, but despite all of this, he still had that evil smirk plasterd over his face as his tail whipped behind him.

"Kakarotto, I bet you think you got me by getting rid of the moon, but you haven't!" declared Vegeta triumphantly.

Ah, so that was the reason why Vegeta had stayed up there for so long thought Goku as things started to make sense. He had been searching for the moon so that he would be able to transform as Raditz had told him. He had no idea that it had been destroyed though. It must have probably been Kami-sama's doing, or maybe Piccolo's if he had found out about what the Saiyajin could do when looking at a full moon. That sure was a good thing that the moon was destroyed then, but why was Raditz looking so tense all of a sudden then?

"I won't be stopped just by that, and that's something that Raditz knows very well. Do you even know why we Saiyajin can transform when we look at a full moon?" asked the villainous Saiyajin. "You should be aware of the fact that moonlight is a product of sunlight, reflected by a planet's moon...but it's not until that sunlight is reflected off the moon, that it contains Bruits Waves. When the moon is full, these Bruits Waves exceed 17 million units, called 'Zeno'... When 17 million Zeno of Bruits Waves, and no less, is absorbed through the eyes of a Saiyajin, it sets off a reaction in our tails, and the transformation begins...!" Vegeta gave an evil laugh before continuing his explenation. "However... A select few Saiyajin are actually capable of transforming on their own by producing a small, artifical moon, that exceeds 17 million Zeno! We do this by mixing the planet's oxygen with this Power Ball!" he finished as he raised one of his hands, using most of the Ki that he had left to create an orb, radiating with blinding light in his palm.

"You low lives should've never challenged me," panted Vegeta as he smirked. "Now you will pay for your insolence with your lives!" he bellowed as he threw the glowing energy ball high into the sky. The Saiyajin prince raised his hand before clenching it and said; "**Burst and combine!**"

OoOoOoO

**A/N: **That was the tenth chapter. I really hope you liked it. I think it turned out alright considering it was my first time writing a fast paced fight scene, but I can be wrong. I think you can alredy guess what's going to happen in the next chapter. Let's see if Raditz' training will pay off as Vegeta resorts to using the technique that reveals exactly why the Saiyajin were so feared throughout the galaxy. Next time; **Gigantic duel! Oozaru vs Oozaru!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of it's many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Welcome back true believers! Sorry that it took a little longer for me to write this chapter, but we've had some problems with viruses in the computer and the like. Even though we're not sure if the computer is completely free of them (or how to completely remove them), we can now use the computer as normal. Don't know what more to say than that I hope that you'll like this chapter. Read and Reaview!

**vegamarie:** Thank you. I hope you'll be pleased with how I did things in this chapter.

**Dark-Sephy: **Thank you. I had just watched the anime-version of Goku's and Vegeta's fight when I started writing that chapter so I guess I was pretty inspired. And remember, Vegeta only said that Bardock created the moonball in the early US dub, not in the japanese original. The dubbers probably didn't want him to ramble about a bunch of semi-scientific nonsense and instead put the blame on a character who they thought would never make an actual appearance. But as we all know by now, Bardock was later introduced and he could hardly ever be mistaken for a "brilliant scientist". I'm not a dub-watcher myself, but if I'm not mistaken, Vegeta's lines were replaced in the "ultimate uncut" edition so that he now talks about "Zeno" and "Bruit waves".

**Xstarlight-dragonX:** Yes, he looks pretty much the same as he does in the Sparking Neo (Tenkaich 2) game as an Oozaru, with just a couple of more spikes atop his head. And yes, there sure are some entertaining stuff in the later sagas of DBZ, but as I've stated before, the bad outnumbers the good (at least for me). Like how everyone suddenly were able to turn SSJ (even seven year old little toddlers!) and how previously important characters became barely more than backstage staff. Hm... I think that there's a rant in there somewhere (might write one later). As for the Android saga. This is of course an important part in the original story, but since this is an alternate reality where Raditz remained alive, he can change things so that certain events doesn't happen.

**KailJoy: **The new chapter is out when you read this.

**Trynia Merin: **Thank you. I hope you'll like it.

**gokuspasm: **Thank you, but you'll just have to continue reading if you want to find out.

**Chapter 11**

**Gigantic duel! Oozaru vs Oozaru!**

The glowing ball of energy exploded high up in the air, casting a blinding light over the entire area for a split second. The light had shined so strongly that Goku had been forced to vlose his eyes, least he'd go blind. Once he looked up at the sky again, he was extremely surprised to find that the small ball of Ki had transformed into a considerably larger one, floating in midair, letting everything bath in it's beautyful light. It looked almost like a small sun... or a moon.

While Goku wasn't the slightest bit affected by the light that the artificial moon produced, there were two others who were. As soon as Raditz and Vegeta laid their eyes on the glowing orb, the two Saiyajin could immediately feel how their bodies responded to it. Everything turned silent for them, except of the sound of their own heart-beats that only seemed to grow both louder and faster. The transformation that was imbedded in their very genetic code had started.

Their teeth formed into sharp fangs as their mouths grew into long, baboon like muzzles. Their eyes turned blood-red, their ears grew and sharpened as their skin started to become covered in a layer of thick, dark-brown fur. Their bones changed form and started to grow, and the surrounding muscles and organs with them, making their bodies grow to nearly gigantic proportions until the two warriors were nearly as large as the surrounding cliffs themselves. One would think that a transformation such as this would be extremely painful for the one experiencing it, but the almost trance like state they were in seemed to ease any sort of discomfort they might have had and it didn't take long before the transformations were finally completed.

Vegeta's strange armor seemed to have grown with it's wearer, expanding over his skin as fast as his bodymass increased. Raditz, on the other hand, had completely shredded the orange gi that Kaio had given him once he grew too big for it. The only piece of clothing that had been left completely undamaged was his red armband, made out of the same material as Vegeta's uniform, that still covered his left bicep. But that wasn't the only thing that separated the two of them from looking nearly identical in this form since Raditz retained one of his most distinguishable features, a large mane of spikey hair that flowed down his upper back, stopping somewhere below his shoulder blades.

The fully transformed Vegeta let out a rumbling laugh that echoed throughout the area. This was something he never grew tired of, seeing his enemies look up at his gargantuan form with surprised and horrified expressions. He wouldn't even need to get his hands dirty by killing all of the planet's inhabitants, Raditz in his mindless state would do it for him! In the meantime, he would be able to fully repay Kakarotto for humiliating him, he thought with a beastly grin that showed all of his sharp teeth.

However, it wouldn't be as simple as the Saiyajin prince had presumed. Raditz' training at Kaio's planet in the Realm of the Dead had really worked, and now was the first time that the long haired warrior actually had it proven to him. Unlike all of the other times that he'd become an Oozaru, were the ferocious beast inside took absolute control over his body, his mind was now as sharp as ever. "_So this is how it feels like being an Oozaru_", he thought as he felt the nearly intoxicating raw power that his body now contained. But despite this new power, Raditz knew that the gap between him and Vegeta was just as large now as it had been before. Never the less, he would still give it his all!

"Kakarotto," came the thundering voice of the maned Oozaru as he looked down at his untransformed younger brother, "stand back. I'll handle things from here," he growled as he took a step forward.

The armoured Oozaru could barely believe his ears. Raditz had just spoken. He who should be nothing more than a mindless beast, let alone being able to form coherent words and sentances. Vegeta knew that there could only be one possible answer to this. His former subordinate must have found a way to tame his Inner Beast. But how was such a thing even possible? Even for a genious, such as himself, a feat like that required years of hard training and Raditz had been away for only a year! Still, this could prove to be quite entertaining, thought the transformed prince with a smirk once most of the shock had subsided.

Goku had done as his brother said and now watched the events unfold from a slight distance away, but not that far away that he wouldn't be able to aid Raditz however he could if the need arose. But there weren't really that much the hero of Earth could hope to do in this situation. His body had barely even started to recover from his own battle with Vegeta and he had used nearly all the Ki that he had. No, this was a duel better left between two fellow monsters he reasoned with a frown. He just hoped that his brother would be able to take him on.

For a moment the two giant apes did nothing but stare each other in the eye, their long tails moving like angry snakes behind their backs. But suddenly, both of them let out a deafening roar right before the two transformed warriors lunged at each other. No words were needed now. Only raw animalistic power. Raditz raised his fur covered arm and took a swipe at Vegeta. However, the armored Oozaru evaded the attack and jumped away, making Raditz tear down one of the cliffs instead, splitting it into smaller pieces of rock that were sent all over the place because of the incredible force behind the blow. The maned Oozaru didn't stop for a second and took the largest boulder he could see among all of the pieces that had recently been part of a great mountain formation, raised it over his head and hurled it with all his might at his opponent.

Vegeta raised one of his enormous arms, a single finger pointing at the quickly incoming projectile, and fired a thin beam of Ki that destroyed the boulder in an explosion that sent shrapnel in all directions. He didn't waste any time and rushed towards Raditz, catching him offguard and delivered a punch that made contact with the great ape's gut. He followed up by dealing out a second blow, but the fist never connected, having been caught in a large and powerful hand. Raditz snarled as he grabbed a hold of Vegeta's other hand before quickly ramming his forehead into the prince's face in a nasty headbutt.

The Oozaru roared in pain before staring hatefully into the burning eyes of his opponent. Vegeta opened his mouth wide and started to gather a considerable amount of Ki. Raditz' red eyes widened as he quickly let go of his opponent, jumping high up into the air just in time to see a massive energy blast tear it's way through the landscape, leaving behind a deep wound in the rocky soil.

The maned Oozaru looked back in the direction of his opponent, only to see the sole of a giant white boot mere inches away from his face. The kick sent his massive body flying through the air until he managed to get his bearings back and turned himself around, using his Ki to stay in midair and watched how Vegeta started to launch a volley of Ki blasts at him. Raditz snarled as he started to bat away the incoming energy projectiles. They weren't nearly as powerful as the mouth blast had been, but those that managed to slip their way through his defenses and made contact with his furry hide still hurt like hell.

Vegeta ceased his fire and started to fly towards his former subordinate at great speed. "What's the matter Raditz?" he laughed in his booming voice as he appeared right in front of his fellow Oozaru and dealt out a punch to his face. "What's the point in taming your Inner Beast if you can't even use the power properly?" he asked mockingly.

Raditz staggered back slightly, but managed to remain in the air without falling. The maned Oozaru growled as he wiped away some blood from his face with his hand. "I'll show you power!" he roared as he put his hands together and fired a tremendous blast of golden Ki at his opponent. However, the satisfying sound of an explosion that would indicate that the attack had hit it's target was never heard.

Vegeta had moved to the side as he watched how the golden beam rushed towards him, letting the attack pass harmlessly beside him. The saiyajin prince's beastial face gained an evil grin as he attacked. He struck Raditz in the chest with an elbow and followed up by grabbing a hold of his left foot. The armored Oozaru started to spin round and round, making everything blurry around the two of them, before finally releasing Raditz to crash into the hard ground below.

The giant ape hit the ground with a loud bang that sent debris and dust everywhere. For a moment, he just lay there, motionless on the ground, but after a while he finally rose himself to his feet. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He blinked a couple of times, feeling how some kind of liquid kept getting into his eyes. He raised a hand to his forehead and felt a gash on it. It wasn't a serious injury and not even that deep but the blood that kept coming out was really annoying and it was also a reminder of how much stronger Vegeta actually was.

Raditz didn't have any time to dwell on this however as his little brother landed on his massive, furry shoulder.

"Kakarotto? What the hell are you doing here?" asked Raditz in his thundering voice as he turned his head to look at his much smaller brother. "I thought I told you to stay out of this," he growled.

"Will you just be quiet for a second and listen to me?" Goku shot back as he looked into his older brother's enormous eyes. "At this rate we won't be able to defeat him, but do you think you can keep him occupied for just a little longer?" he asked.

"I'll try. But what are you exactly up to?" asked Raditz with a quizzical, hairless, eyebrow raised.

"I need time to gather energy in order to form a Genki Dama. That's the only way we can ever hope of defeating him," replied the Earth raised Saiyajin. "It shouldn't be that hard to hit him now that he's in this form. But until then, I need you to keep him away from me. Do you think you can keep his hands full for ten seconds? I don't think that I would be able to make another one if I were interrupted."

The two brothers' attention was brought back to the battle as their titanic enemy landed, not that far away from them. The armoured Oozaru grinned evilly, showing all of his sharp fangs, as he clenched and unclenched his giant hands intimidatingly. Slowly, Vegeta started to walk towards Raditz and Goku, the earth quaking with each step of his massive feet.

"Sure, I'll give you the time you need," replied Raditz, never taking his eyes off the slowly aproaching Vegeta. "We'll show this guy what we're made of," he finished with a feral smirk.

Goku smiled and nodded at Raditz' answer. "Just make sure to get out of my line of fire once I've gathered enough energy to fire a Genki Dama," he said before he finally jumped off from his brother's shoulder and flew away, intent on finding a spot where he could safely form his most powerful technique.

"Leaving already? We can't have that, now can we?" chuckled Vegeta as he watched the youngest of the two brothers apparently leave the battle. He raised his arm, ready to vaporize the warrior with a blast of Ki. He never got to do as he had planned however, his arm having been caught in the hands of the other Oozaru present.

"Where do you think you're looking at? I'm your opponent!" growled Raditz as he stared into Vegeta's blood-red eyes, right before he spun around and tossed him away with a mighty roar. The maned Oozaru didn't waste a second as he took off after him. As soon as he was above the royal Saiyajin, he slammed his giant fists into the armored chest of the transformed prince and sent him to the ground below. This Saiyajin warrior was going to keep this duel going for as long as he possibly could. After all, a big brother was supposed to look out for his younger siblings.

OoOoOoO

Goku landed atop one of the remaining cliffs with a small thud. He couldn't help but notice how immense the destruction they had caused in their battle was as he surveyed his surroundings. This was probably as bad as it had been when he fought Piccolo in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, if not even worse than that.

His brother was really giving it his all, he thought to himself as he watched how the two Oozaru returned to their battle, tearing up even more of their 'arena' as their duel progressed. It looked as if Vegata kept gaining the upperhand, but Raditz still kept on fighting like a wild beast. Goku shook his head, reminding himself that he shouldn't occupy himself by playing audience. He had much more important things to do and every single second counted.

The hero took a deep calming breath before he slowly raised his heavily strained arms over his head, palms open and pointing to the sky. "Earth... Sea... And everything alive on this planet. Lend me just a little bit of your energy. The energy to save us all from this enemy. I beg of you!" he pleaded, asking the whole planet Earth to share it's immense power with him so that he would be able to defeat the one who sought to destroy them all.

OoOoOoO

Raditz was fighting like a possesed beast, unleashing all the raw power that his giant body was capable of on his opponent. He roared as he dealt out blow after blow, using both his monstruous strength and massive blasts of Ki to keep Vegeta occupied long enough for his brother to form a Genki Dama so that they would be able to once and for all beat this powerful enemy.

The maned Oozaru pulled back his right arm before sending a mighty punch in his enemy's direction. However, the gargantuan hand was caught in Vegeta's equally large one, making him unable to pull free.

"This game is starting to bore me," snarled the armored Oozaru in Raditz' face as he kept his opponent's fist trapped in his gloved hand. Suddenly, the Saiyajin prince raised his free arm over his head and struck Raditz' unprotected elbow joint with his own elbow, breaking the arm. The maned Oozaru didn't even have time to roar in pain before Vegeta's fist connected with his gut, completely knocking the wind out of his lungs and making him fall to his knees.

"Now, just stay down so that I can finally kill you," said the giant warrior in a voice devoid of any emotion, right before he raised an open hand that was crackling with his malevolent energy.

OoOoOoO

Goku's eyes widened in awe as the enormous amount of Ki started to pour into his body. Every living thing on the entire planet shared a small part of their Ki with him, and for a glimpse of a second, it felt as if he had become one with Earth. The feeling was so much grander than it had been when he tried the technique at Kaio's small planet. It was simply brethtking.

The Ki had now been assembled. All that was left from him to do was to focus it all into a single ball that would serve as the instrument of Vegeta's demise.

OoOoOoO

Just when the armored Oozaru was about to deliver the final blow and end the life of his opponent, he stopped and lowered his hand. Something wasn't right. He didn't know what, but there was something in the air that was making him feel terribly uneasy. "_What the hell is this feeling?_" thought Vegeta, searching furiously with his eyes after the source of this strange phenomenon. Every fibre of his being were warning him from some sort of unseen danger, but what!

He finally discovered what was wrong when he spotted the Saiyajin who called himself Son Goku atop one of the cliffs. He had his arms raised into the air, but what really caught the prince's attention was the fact that the warrior was enveloped in a glowing aura of brilliant Ki that only seemed to grow larger and more intense by each passing second.

Raditz noticed that Vegeta had seen his brother, and he desperately moved to attack his former squad-leader. To stop him from getting to his brother. But he still hadn't been able to overcome the pain that his broken arm was causing him and was thus unable to avoid the kick that connected with his chin and sent him falling to his back.

"I thought I told you to stay down," growled the Oozaru before he once again turned his attention to the younger one of the two brothers. Whatever it was that Kakarotto was doing, Vegeta knew that he couldn't allow him to complete it. He started to gather Ki to his open mouth, making the surrounding air crackle with his power, before he fired a massive beam right at his unprotected enemy.

OoOoOoO

Goku had just been about to form the assembled Ki into the shape of a ball when he saw how Vegeta stared right at him. He barely even had time to widen his eyes in horror before a powerful energy blast hit the cliff he was standing atop of. In a massive explosion of blinding light he was sent flying, only to fall painfully to the ground as small pieces of rock rained down all around him.

The dark haired warrior hissed in pain as he struggled to his feet. He cursed his own carelessness. What the hell had he been thinking? Staying out in the open like that had made him an easy target. Suddenly, the ground quaked, nearly making him lose his footing once again. He quickly turned his gaze upwards, only to stare into the blood-red eyes of the giant Oozaru Vegeta who towered above him.

"You should have run away when you had the chance Kakarotto," he said with an evil grin. "If you had then you could probably have prolonged your life with at least a couple of minutes. But this is where it ends for you," finished Vegeta with an evil laugh as he raised his gargantuan foot, intending to crush Goku like a bug.

Goku narrowed his eyes. The attempt with Genki Dama had exhausted nearly all the Ki that he had left and his body was so strained that he could barely move anymore. But he'd be damned if he was going to let this monster go through with his plan of killing everyone on Earth. Not as long as he still had air in his lungs or blood still pumped through his veins, he was not going to give up!

"Vegeta!"

The transformed prince turned around in surprise to see Raditz quickly aproaching them, zigzagging his way between the cliffs and mountains in an astonishing display of speed for such a large creature. Suddenly, he leaped high up into the air as he intended to crash right down onto Vegeta.

But the armored Oozaru just smirked as he saw the warrior's actions and raised his arm, indexfinger pointing at the incoming form of his former subordinate and fired a thin beam of Ki that pierced right through Raditz' left kneecap. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to not cry out in pain as he continued his downfall. But just as he'd been about to hit his opponent, he stepped out of the way, making Raditz hit the ground instead.

Once he got up again, now forced to support his entire body-weight on just his right foot, Vegeta threw a punch at him. Despite his decreased movability, Raditz managed to evade the punch and got behind his enemy and sneaked his good arm around his neck. The maned Oozaru put as much pressure as he could into the grip as he tried to strangle Vegeta, but the prince brought an immediate end to that attempt.

He slammed the back of his head right into Raditz' face, forcing him to let go of the hold he had on his throat. As he staggered back, Vegeta took a hold of his furry shoulders and sank his sharp fangs into the flesh of the maned Oozaru's left shoulder. No matter how much he struggled, the Saiyajin prince didn't let go before he heard the sickening sound of breaking bones, making his opponent unable to use either of his arms. Raditz howled in pain as he fell to his back, but Vegeta wasn't done yet. Using his heel he broke several of Raditz' ribs, greatly enjoying his anguished cries, before he was finally satisfied. He grinned evilly as he raised his arm to deal out the killing blow.

"Stop it!"

Vegeta's eyes widened in stunned surprise as Goku suddenly appeared right in front of his face that soon became twisted into a mask of pain as the much smaller fighter blasted him with a bolt of Ki, hitting his right eye. Vegeta clutched the right side of his face, roaring in excruciating pain as he swatted the man responsible of his agony away like a bug.

He flew right into a mountain-wall before he fell limply down to the ground. He was completely powerless now. As defenseless as a half drowned kitten. That last attack had taken everything that he had left in his already battered body, and now he didn't even have the strength required to pick his nose. He had never imagined that Vegeta would be this powerful. So much stronger than both himself and Raditz. It was a total loss. Part of him was actually kinda glad that there was such a strong warrior in this world, but he felt sad at what this gifted fighter had chosen to do with his power, at what he was going to do once he finished them off. Goku could do nothing more than give a tired smile as he looked up with half lidded eyes at the giant form of Vegeta, towering above him.

"Why you...! Why you...!" hissed Vegeta through gritted teeth. He had his wounded eye closed, but there was still blood that kept running down from it. "Kakarotto, how dare you cut my face!" he roared before he grabbed Goku's body with one of his massive hands. "I'll crush you!"

It did not take long before the agonized screams of Earth's greatest hero echoed throughout the barren wasteland, as the Oozaru started breaking his bones one by one.

OoOoOoO

Hope you enyojed the chapter. Next time: as things seems to be completely lost for our heroes, unexpected aid comes from a trio of friends. If you know your DBZ, I think you'll know who they are. Read and Review!


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of its many characters. They belong to Akira Toriyama, TOEI animation and a bunch of other lucky guys. I do own some original characters that might appear later on in the story.

**A/N: **Welcome back true believers to another exci...! Hey, wait! Don't throw rocks at me! Ouch! Cut it out! I'm honestly very sorry that you had to wait this long for a new chapter. Three entire months without an update! I guess you wan't some explenations, huh? Well, school started again shortly after the last update and this year most of the days ends very late, making me come home at around 16:20 most of the days. I also got myself some new videogames, including a Nintendo DS, so you could say I have been distracted. But I wan't to make something absoluetly clear. There's NO way that I am ever going to abandon this fic (unless something completely unforseen happens that is). With that said, I hope you'll enjoy the newest chapter of Brothers. Read and Review!

**vegamarie:** Thank you and sorry for the long wait. I'm very glad that you like my story and although the changes are very minor this far, they will get much more apperant and greater as the story progresses.

**Xstarlight-dragonX: **Thanks for the review. I'll try my best to not turn Raditz into another Mary Sue and I'm very glad that there are people who tells me before I accidentedly goes that far. He do have some old personality traits left, but there just hasn't been any time to show them yet. Remember that this version of Raditz basically had it thrown into his face that all the things he has done in life were wrong. He's also spent an entire year with his brother, getting to know him and having him show him how he could be if he only wanted. I plan to add quite alot of Saiyajin culture to my DBZ universe, either in this fic or others. It might be in the form of flashbacks or having Raditz simply telling. Goku has already asked quite alot of questions, although many of those happened off screen. As I said, flashbacks. Anyway, I hope you'll continue reading this fic and send more constructive criticism since I need those to improve my writing.

**Mr. Glass 139:** Thank you, and sorry for having you wait for so long. ;

**Gotik Freesja: **Thanks a whole bunch. )

**Hunter Hatake and Neko Uchiha: **The new chapter is out now. )

**Almech: **Thank you, and as I've said before I'm never giving up on this fic, even if updates sometimes comes irregularly.

**Chapter 12**

**Retaliation**

"Hurry Kuririn-san! We're almost there!"

"Hey, I'm flying as fast as I can Gohan!"

Gohan and Kuririn had both been well on their way to Kame Island, just as they had been told to do by Goku, when they suddenly felt how two individual sources of Ki spiked right through the roof. In startled surprise, the two short warriors had turned around only to see how a miniature star shone in the distance. Kuririn had a fairly decent idea of what was going on, and the feeling of dread he had wasn't helping any, but no matter what he said he couldn't stop the child from going back to help his father.

The two of them had now finally reached the mountain area where the epic battle was taking place. They stared wide eyed as they surveyed from midair the massive damage that had been caused to the local environment. Suddenly, the two of them spotted something that made their eyes go even wider. A giant creature, clad in Vegeta's armor, was holding Goku's nearly lifeless body in a tight grip in its massive hands. Not that far away was another one, laying on its back in a pool of its own blood.

"Kuririn-san, what are those things?" asked Gohan hesitantly, unable to take his eyes away from the frightening creature he was looking at.

"Gohan, get to the ground! We have to hide!" yelled the warrior monk, fear evident in his voice. It had been as he had first suspected. He had absolutely no idea how, but Vegeta must have created that "star" they had seen earlier in order to trigger the transformation he had once seen at his first Tenkaichi Budokai. Something he had hoped to never be forced to witness again. He knew from firsthand experience how dangerous this would be, and there was no way that they could ever hope to achieve anything by attacking straight from the front. They silently descended to the ground and then hurried as fast as their legs could bear towards the Oozaru, always keeping themselves in the monster's blindspot.

It was at this point that the two of them ran right into Yajirobi. The chubby swordsman had managed to hide himself during the entire battle, a battle of which he would never forget for as long as he lived.

"Th-the Saiyajin...! That's the Saiyajin!" he stuttered as he pointed at the monstrous form of Vegeta.

"I know," replied Kuririn, ignoring the shocked look on Gohan's face at hearing this. "Now listen up you two," he whispered, immediately taking on the role of leader in the absence of Goku and Piccolo, "we have to cut off Vegeta's tail. If we do that he'll revert back to his normal form. Then, and only then, we might have a chance of taking him down. You two try to distract him while I sneak up behind him and cut it off. Now let's go!"

Kuririn and Gohan instantly sprang apart, going in separate directions to initiate the plan. Yajirobi however stood rooted to the spot, not moving an inch. The swordsman's fists were clenched tightly in frustration at his sides as beads of sweat were running down his face. "Distract him? Yeah right," he muttered through gritted teeth. "There's no chance in hell that we'll be able to do anything to this guy."

OoOoOoO

Son Goku had long since passed out due to the excruciating pain of having nearly all of his bones savagely broken by the massive hands of Vegeta.

The warrior prince had greatly enjoyed hearing the Earth hero's agonized screams as he systematically broke his bones one after another. It was sweet music to his ears and he laughed in sickening glee to finally have his hated enemy completely at his mercy, to know that there was absolutely no way for Kakarotto to escape his inevitable death this time. Raditz lay broken and defeated in his Oozaru form not that far away, his increased strength having been no match against the incredible might of the prince of all Saiyajin. He would deal with that traitor soon enough, mused Vegeta, right after he finished off the unconcious filth of a low-classed warrior he currently had in his hands.

But suddenly Vegeta's highly sensitive ears picked up something that made him stop his train of thought. He heard footsteps. He wasn't alone anymore. He turned his head around a couple of times, using his remaining undamaged eye to search his surroundings for any newly arrived enemies.

"Let go of my dad!"

The ape like monster's blood-red eye instantly locked onto the source of the outburst and he chuckled at who he saw. It was none other than the son of the man he had been torturing for the last minutes. Right there, standing atop one of the cliffs, stood Son Gohan, his face contorted in silent rage as he stared defiantly up at the towering form of Vegeta.

"What a surprise," he chuckled, his booming voice echoing throughout the barren wasteland as his long and powerful tail whipped the air behind him. "Kakarotto's brat has come to witness the final moments of his dear father's life. I must say you have a great sense of timing, he's right about to die and I was just going to deliver the finishing blow." At those words he removed one of his hands and placed it right on top of Goku's head, making him ready to crush the hero's head at any moment's notice. "Watch closely now brat," said Vegeta as he started to laugh his evil laugh once again while Gohan could do nothing more but clensh his fists in frustration and pray that whatever it was Kuririn was planning that he would do it fast.

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Kuririn had hurried as silently as he possibly could to reach the top of one of the rock formations and this was absolutely perfect for him. It gave him a clear shot to cut of Vegeta's tail as Gohan held his attention. The former monk took a deep calming breath as he started his preperations. He regulated the Ki in his right arm, making it glow for a moment, as he raised it above his shaved head. But instead of the usual sphere of explosive energy one would have expected to appear, Kuririn instead focused the Ki into a perfect, nearly solid, disk that gave of a low humming sound as it started to rotate quickly just a couple of inches above his outstretched palm.

This was the special technique which Kuririn had developed in utmost secrecy during the past year to be used as his trump card against the Saiyajin. Knowing that the enemies that they were to face would be stronger than what they could have possibly imagined, Kuririn hadn't spent his time trying to develop something that would require a ridiculous ammount of Ki to even put a dent in the Saiyajin's defenses. Instead he had opted for something much simpler yet brilliant. Inspired by Yamucha's Sokidan, Kuririn had started experimenting on what other chapes he could form his Ki into. And this was the final result (which ironically barely required any Ki at all). Whereas the Sokidan, a solid sphere of Ki, was used to hit an opponent faster and harder than any punch or kick ever could, Kuririn's disk had been developed to simply cut through anything that came in its path, much like an ordinary buzzsaw, and would have easily decapitated Nappa if Vegeta hadn't warned the big Saiyajin in the last second.

Now the short orange-clad warrior was going to use it in order to save the life of his best friend. He let his arm fall from its position over his head, throwing it at his giant target as he silently uttered the name of his technique.

"Kienzan."

Both Kuririn and Gohan watched on in tense anticipation as the energy disk aproached Vegeta... only to have all of their hopes utterly crushed as the Oozaru simply jumped high up in the air, easily avoiding the deadly technique. It continued on its trip straight forward, cutting through stones and rock as easily as a hot knife through butter, until it finally dissolved into nothingness.

Vegeta landed with a loud bang, making the ground quake under his enormous wheight. He slowly turned his head around and fixed a single crimson eye at the warrior monk before showing off all of his sharp fangs in an evil grin that made Kuririn feel a paralyzing chill surge through his core.

"Did you honestly think that I didn't know that there was one more rat around?" he asked in his thundering voice. "I didn't think Kakarotto's little brat would come back all alone, so I searched the area after you. But just you wait there, as soon as I've taken care of Kakarotto I'll end the suffering of the lot of you," Vegeta declared with a laugh as he started to squeeze his unconcious enemy in his giant hands, intent on finally killing him and there was nothing either Gohan or Kuririn could do to stop him. The Saiyajin was simply too powerful for them. Kuririn clenched his eyelids tightly shut as his body shook in bitter frustration, feeling utterly powerless as he heard Gohan screaming desperately for Vegeta to stop, something which both of them knew he never would.

But suddenly, as if someone had pushed a switch, all noise ceased instantly, making everything deathly quite. Vegeta's evil laughter had died in his throat and his face now held a look of complete shock, making Gohan cease his screaming and forcing both his and Kuririn's eyes to grow as wide as saucers.

Behind the giant Oozaru lay his furry tail unmoving on the ground, separated from his body, with Yajirobi standing above it with his drawn katana in a firm grip in his right hand. He had no longer been able to keep himself out of this whole mess without having his annoying conscience nagging in the back of his head, and thus grasped the opportunity to help his comrades out when a perfect moment to slice Vegeta's tail off was presented to him. But now that that was all over, and his short supply of bravery had been emptied, he ran as fast as his legs could possibly bear, intent on finding some place where he could safely hide. He had done his part, now the others would have to handle things from here he reasoned.

Gohan and Kuririn could only stare in dumbfounded silence at the sight before looking back in time to witness the physical change that Vegeta was now forced to go through.

"My tail! Damn it all!!" he roared in in a mixture of disbelief, rage and agony as his entire body started to shake, his muscles convulsing spasmodically as his body began to revert back to its normal form, unable to keep the transformation up without the tail. He had been so occupied with what he was doing that he never even noticed that there was a third warrior in the area and his carelessness had allowed him to sneak up right behind him to cut his precious tail off. His shrinking hands finally lost their hold on Goku and the hero of Earth fell to the hard ground below with a thud, his physically superiour Saiyajin body being the only reason why he was still alive and breathing despite all the horrible damage he had suffered.

The de-transformation took remarkably little time and it didn't take long before Vegeta was back in his normal form. Most Saiyajin warriors would have normally passed out right after reverting back to their natural state due to the incredibly exhausting physical strain done to their bodies because of the transformation, but the prince of all Saiyajin wasn't like the rest of his now dead people and remained standing on his two feet. But that didn't mean he wasn't affected by the strain, far from it and he desperately tried to catch his breath as he started to get his weakened body back under control. First the lost battle against Raditz and Kakarotto, then being forced to transform and now this! Weakening his terrifying power to but a mere shadow of its former glory! And to make matters worse he had been stripped of the very mark that had identified him as one of the noble Saiyajin, the greatest race of warriors to have ever lived in this galaxy! This was beyond unforgivable! There wouldn't even be space-dust left after he was done with this filthy planet he thought with a snarl that twisted his normally handseome features as his undamaged eye burned with a nearly maniacal fire. "How dare you!" he roared in rage. "You want to make me angry and die that badly?! Then, I'll slaughter you all you scum!!"

Before either Kuririn or Gohan had been able to even consider taking on a defensive position, Vegeta had made his move, dashing towards his new target at near impossible speed. Gohan barely even had time to gasp before he was sent rolling to the ground as Vegeta's knee hit him square in the chest. The young Half-Saiyajin gritted his teeth in pain as he forced himself to stand up, only to have his eyes widen in horror as he saw his attacker looking down at him. "You are first," sneered Vegeta coldly before punching the boy in the gut, effectively knocking the wind right out of him, but Gohan didn't have any time to keel over in pain before he was roughly grabbed by the throat and held above the ground.

"What's the matter?" snarled Vegeta as the young boy desperatly clawed at the hand that was cutting off his air supply. "Do you mean to tell me that this is all the power you have? Show me your real strength," he smirked evily as he started to apply even more pressure on his grip, threatening to snap Gohan's neck like a twig.

"Let him go!" yelled Kuririn as he attempted to rescue the son of his best friend, only to be instantly stopped by a roundhouse-kick dealt out by Vegeta, sending him flying until he painfully crashed into a solid cliff-side from where he later fell to the ground, unmoving and groaning in pain .

"Wait for your turn baldy! I'll deal with you shortly," growled Vegeta in barely restrained rage. His power might have been weakened, but it was still more than enough to exterminate bugs shuch as these. He returned his attention to the now nearly blue Gohan caught in his grip and laughed as he raised his free hand, starting to form a bright sphere of energy in the palm of it. "How does it feel to know that you're just about to die brat? But don't you worry. Your father and your little friends will all join you short...ly?" Vegeta's laughter ceased immediately as a loud bang was heard right behind them, accompanied by a tremble in the ground that nearly made him lose his hold on the boy in his grasp. Everything turned dark as they were both enveloped within the shadow of something very large towering over them from behind. Vegeta instantly spun around only to have his visible eye widen in utter shock as he stared up right in the face of Raditz, still in his giant Oozaru-form.

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If it hadn't been for Goku, Raditz wouldn't have been alive right now. His younger brother had saved him from certain death when he attacked their mighty enemy just when he'd been about to unleash the finishing blow upon his defenseless form, him having entered a state of unconciousness due to the damage he'd suffered through after his defeat at the hands of Vegeta after their titanic duel. Highly ironically it had also been because of Vegeta that he was now finally awake again, the prince's thundering laughter , and later roars of agony, having stirred him from his unwanted slumber.

At first Raditz had merely stared up at the darkening evening sky with his crimson Oozaru eyes, wondering where he was and why his body ached so terribly, when suddenly all of his memories came rushing back like a tidal wave. The maned Oozaru gritted his teeth, forcing himself to not cry out in pain as he struggled to get back up on his feat. It was not an easy task considering that both of his broken arms hung limply at his sides, many of his ribs having been cracked by Vegeta and his wounded left knee made it practically impossible for it to support any kind of wheight. But despite all of this he managed to finally raise himself off the ground. After coughing up some blood that had been caught in his system and then getting his breathing back under control, trying to calm himself down enough to do something that Kaio had taught them to do, he started to sense the different sources of Ki in the area in order to get a grip of their current situation. Not counting himself there where now currently four...no, five persons in the area besides himself. He hadn't even felt his own brother's Ki at first. It had been so faint that he'd been forced to concentrate further, but no matter how weak it was it was still there, which meant that Goku was still alive, and that was something that made Raditz breath a deep sigh of relief.

He then turned his attention to the other four. Three of which he correctly sorted out as his nephew Son Gohan, his younger brother's bald friend and the chubby swordsman with shoulder-length black hair he had met earlier. The last one, the owner of a malevolent Ki that nearly made his fur stand on end in discomfort could be none other than Prince Vegeta himself. Raditz nearly smirked to himself as he felt how much his former commander's Ki had weakend during the time he had been away in lah lah land. He was clearly no Oozaru anymore, most likely because someone had finally been able to cut off his tail, and his current power was also nowhere near that of his usual level. All the intense battles must have taken a whole lot more out of the prince than he would be willing to admit. However, suddenly something changed that made Raditz frown in his beast like state. He felt how the evil Ki of Vegeta's had quickly aproached Gohan's own, only to slowly sense how his nephew's Ki was slowly dissappearing, like how you blow out a candle. His eyes widened as he knew exactly what this meant. Vegeta was killing Gohan.

The maned Oozaru made sure to not loose any more valuable time as every single second counted at this moment. He focused his Ki in his unharmed leg, using it to help him jump high up into the sky. After pinpointing the exact location of his target he allowed gravity to grab onto him, using a minimal amount of Ki to guide himself to land right behind Vegeta.

The Saiyajin prince was so shocked to see his former subordinate, having thought that he would still be uncounscious far longer after the beating he had given him, that he was nearly swatted away by the Oozaru's powerful tail as it came from his left. He managed to avoid it in the last second as he threw Gohan to the side and flew straight up into the air, feeling the wind hit him as the whip-like attack missed him by a mere inch.

Vegeta snarled as he threw the ball of glowing Ki he still held in his hand right in the face of his monstruous adversary. If he'd been able to use his arms Raditz would simply have blocked the attack, but as it was now he was forced to simply close his eyes and let the projectile hit him in the face. The maned Oozaru roared in anger at being temporarily blinded and opened his maw to fire a volley of massive energy blasts in the direction of where he thought Vegeta to be. However, his much smaller opponent dodged all of them expertedly and then dashed forward, planning to rip his opponents eyes out while he had the chance.

Despite only seeing large colourful spots in front of his eyes, Raditz could stil sense his enemy's Ki and thus knew that Vegeta was attacking. All the damage that had been done to his body had severly limited his movements. And even though both of his arms were now close to useless, he could still move his right shoulder whithout much problem. The maned Oozaru grunted in pain as he swung his limp arm and unleashed a blow that sent his former comander flying.

With the threat temporarily out of the way, Raditz sank to his knees as he was assaulted by another racking coughing and coughed up some more blood that he spat out onto the rocky floor. Vegeta's previous attacks had obviously done more than simply breaking his bones, most likely damaged his internal organs as well. Once he was able to breath more or less normally again, and had finally gotten the last of the cobwebs out of his eyes, he turned his attention towards his nephew who just stared wide eyed at him as he sat on the ground.

"Are you okay kid?" he rasped out as a small trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth.

Gohan could only nod dumbfounded as he looked into the red, halflidded eyes of his oversized rescuer. It hadn't taken long for the boy to understand that this enormous ape in front of him was actually none other than his uncle, although he still couldn't understand how he, or Vegeta, had been able to transform themselves into these monstrous beings. He decided to let it be for now and simply ask about it later, if they would survive that is. This was the third time he had been rescued by his uncle, and he was just as surprised as he had been the two previous times. They say that it is hard to get over the first impression you get from a person, and in Gohans case this was very true. He had remembered Raditz as the man who had scared him beyond belief and turned his peaceful life completely upsidedown, but now here he was trying to protect him against people who wished to bring harm upon them all. It was all so very confusing for the boy.

"That's good," rumbled Raditz with what could have possibly been a small smile, it was very hard to tell in his current form. "Now listen up," he said as he got serious, "I'll need your help right now. Normally I would be more than capable of taking care of Vegeta in this form, but because of my injuries I won't be able to keep up with his fast movements. That's why I need you to back me up. If he manages to cut off my tail then everything will be over."

"B...But I can't!" stammered the boy as he averted his gaze and clenshed his fists in frustration. "You saw what just happened. He's simply to powerful for me. There's no possible way I could ever...!"

"Don't you talk like that!" bellowed Raditz and effectivelly silenced his nephew, making the boy look up at him with surprised eyes at the outburst. "I know that he's much more powerful than you, and I know that you are scared right now, but you have to pull yourself together! Imagine what would happen if we don't win today. I have known Vegeta for over twenty years and I know for a fact that he won't rest until he has killed every single being on this entire planet if he's not stopped. You aren't just fighting for your own life today, but also for your father, your mother and for everyone else you hold dear. So stand tall Son Gohan, son of Kakarotto, and show me and everyone else here that you will do whatever it takes to protect your home!"

Gohan lowered his head as he let this sink in. It was true. Every word. If he didn't dare to face Vegeta, then they would all have an even smaller chance of winning than they already had. If they lost then it would be the end of the world, and his family, his friends and all of Earth's innocent inhabitants would all be doomed. If he didn't fight, then Piccolos sacrifice would have been all in vain. Failing the memory of his mentor, who had given away his life for him, was something Gohan refused to do!

Gohan slowly stood up, whatever fear or hesitation he might have had were all gone now and the young Half-Saiyajin raised his head, his charcoal black eyes burning with a determined fire, and looked into the maned Oozaru's bloodred eyes as he uttered three words: "I will fight."

"That's good kid," replied Raditz with a smirk, being greatly satisfied by his nephew's answer. He then turned around to see Vegeta coming right back at them, having finally recovered from the blow that Raditz had dealt out earlier. "Here he comes kid. Get ready!"

Gohan didn't hesitate for even a second as he launched himself into the air with a battle-cry, dashing towards his enemy to meet him halfay there. The young boy stil wasn't sure of how he felt about his uncle, could he trust him? Had he really changed? All of the questions he had would have to wait until later, because right now he had a home to protect!

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Well, I say it again, sorry for the late update. I'll try to write the next one much faster than this. Until next time, this is ChaosGhidorah who's signing off...Read and Review!


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